Nish Kumar (The Absolutely On Time Frankly Early Films Of The Year 2O24 Special • Part 1) • #346

LOOK OUT! It’s only Films To Be Buried With!

Join your host Brett Goldstein as he talks life, death, love and the universe with long-term show friend, hilarious comic and insightful podcaster NISH KUMAR! It's The Absolutely On Time Frankly Early Films Of The Year 2O24 Special!

How many times has Nish died on here? Only the most astute, 20/20 vision historian and FTBBW expert could tell, but what we DO know is that Nish will deliver the goods every single time without any hint of fail, and folks this first of a two parter is pure joy from start to end. You know the deal - Brett and Nish team up to discuss the past year's cinematic offerings at a time and date not tethered by diary dates or restricted by the shackles of formal punctuality, and in doing so deliver non-stop goodness and greatness at every opportunity. So many bits, so much fun, but also much heartfelt and sincere big heart energy. So please enjoy the first of this two part celebration of last year!

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TED LASSO

SHRINKING

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SUPERBOB (Brett's 2015 feature film)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Look out. It's only films to be buried with Hello
and welcome, dear, films to be buried with crue and family.
This is show producer and editor Buddy Peace, just checking

(00:21):
in on behalf of your regular show host and intro
deliverer Brett Goldstein. Now, Brett is currently on assignment with
a number of plates spinning and all manner of engagements
to engage in, So allow me to welcome you into
this wonderful two part special episode. So as you'll likely
be aware of by now, a particular point in the
year which is untethered by rigid diary dates and annual

(00:44):
locked in plans, a round up of the previous year's
films takes place, and it is my great pleasure to
reintroduce Brett's companion in this quest folks. As always, Brett
is joined by show friend and long term contributor Nish Kumar.
We've lost count of how many times exactly Nish has
died on this podcast, but here we are. Nature finds

(01:04):
a Way. It's a lovely and of course super enjoyable
journey through a past year of cinematic goodness mixed in
with so many other fun ingredients and references and sub references,
and maybe even some sub sub references, but all in
all a perfect opportunity to join the two in celebrating
some memorable moments in the year just gone. Extra audio
and video is over on the Patreon page at patreon

(01:27):
dot com slash Brett Goldstein, which is very much worth
your time check out. If you are of a supporting nature,
Thank you so please enjoy Nish and Brett in the
first of two episodes, the second of which is dropping
next week.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Enjoy hello and welcome to films to be buried with.
It is I Brett Goldstein and I am joined today
Bayers sixth time, seventh, who who can count? Eighth? He's back,

(02:08):
He's he's he's a toilet n He's a mis report,
He's a tour us. He's wanted deader alive. He's he's
a menace to society. But he spelled it properly because
he's like that. He's uh, he's a he's a good boy.

(02:29):
He's the bad boy of comedy. He's a lover. He's
a fighter and he will call your prime minister or
your president. Account Please we to the show. He's one
of the great He's back. Once again like the Renegade Master.
Here he is fresh from his pressing podcast. Here he's back.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Show this Guma three four jamming power to the people.
The more and more years that we do this, the
morea more abstracted, the morrible. The introduction becomes sort of
beat poetry as you as you try and frantically incorporate

(03:19):
things that you've you may or may not have heard
me say in the last twelve months.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Niss God, it's nice to see you. How the listeners
at home were out and about? Where you are right now?

Speaker 3 (03:32):
I'm currently in Melbourne, Australia, where I am about to
where I'm about to start a run of shows at
the Melbourne Comedy Festival and then do on Australian tour.
I've been on the road for a while now, so
I was in America and Canada.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
I saw you in America. Yes, so this has been
doing his American tour. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Arguably we should have done this when we were in
the same city.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
It would have made sense. Tell tell the Tell the listeners, hello, listeners,
Tell them about your America. How do you find touring America,
particularly with your particular brand of spicy comedy. I went
to see this in Brooklyn. Yes, it's Brooklyn the home crowd. Sure,
but boy, he said some things that I was like,

(04:17):
this is an edge Lord. I'm watching edge Lord comedy
right now. Couldn't believe it. Oh, I couldn't believe it.
Get me on at the Bathership, Get me on at
the Mothership. It was an excellent show. And those of
you who haven't seen it yet, you must go see
a show. But take protection because someone's getting pregnant. That's

(04:38):
all I say. Tell us, how you how has it been? Well?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
What I would say is it was nice to do
my first and probably last American tour. It was an
exercise that might as well have been subtitled Bang goes
the Visa. Yes, Yes, especially considering there was a very
positive New York Times review that was also I would

(05:02):
describe as unbelievably accurate.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
That in terms of what was in the show. Yeah,
it wasn't great to have it written in print. Was
it's all well and good saying this stuff. But when it's.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Written to yes, yeah, so I've been doing that to all.
It was an interesting time to be in the United
States of America. To be honest with you, it was
interesting time. To be in Canada just because I think,
you know, there's a decent chunk of my partner's family
as you know, that lives out in Canada. And I
will say it's as angry as I've ever seen Canadians. Really,

(05:38):
it's as angry as I thought. It's angry that I
thought it was possible for Canadians to be, oh wow, angry.
But I guess if your next door abra is like
sort of threatening invasion, it will cause even the more
mild manner of people. Even Mike Myers is angry. That's
how bad things have got you upset.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Austin Powers, Yeah, Wayne's throwing a fit over there, absolutely serious. Yeah,
it was brought him out of retirement though, which it
swings aroundabacks, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's yeah,
like on the one hand, yes, it's the end of
the world, but I never had he's doing a great mask.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
He's doing a great elon musk. He's doing a phenomenal
Elon musk on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah. Yeah, the shows were great.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
And I was asked by several people when we were
doing this podcast, and I said Today's and I said,
we'll get gig there. I'm afraid that it's a little
bit busy making a film with j Lo. Well, I'm
in New Jersey, you're in Melbourne. But tell us about
your tell us about your year. It's been a year

(06:42):
since we've seen you. Probably, Yeah, you've been touring America.
You've started, Have you start? Did we talk about you
started it? Or will you into it?

Speaker 2 (06:50):
You have your show This Saves the UK and the
UK Saver the UK and on your excellent podcast because
he's like toilet thish, but for it is it's like
toilet nih but you can walk around with it.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
But should we even bother explaining that or at this
point I think at this point the unfortunately, the like
stacked layers of in jokes that exist only within these
specific editions of this podcasts not even it's not even
an a joke that occurs week to week on the
show a year. But that the problem is now it's
so late it's almost difficult for me to unpack the

(07:31):
start of why you would describe my UK news podcast
as toilet dish But for your ears, I don't We
don't even have time to go into what Koybe was.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
We don't even have time. Brat no, no, one knows.
Still to this day, historians are mulling it over.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
My year has been I've done a lot of stand
up comedy. I've been touring my show Dish Don't Kill
My Vibe, which I'm going to record in May in
the Hackney Empire. Depending on when you're listening to this
or when this goes out, what will I do with
that recording?

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Hudos?

Speaker 3 (08:02):
At this point, I'm amassing quite the Prince vault of
recording record. I'll do something. I'll do something with that
recording at some point.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
You know something from a performance point of view, Actually,
I may be serious for a minute. In your show,
which was what is it an hour and a half
ninety minutes, you are high octane from start to finish,
very very high energy shouting. Now, it never dipped. It
was hilarious. It was brilliant for ninety minutes straight. But

(08:34):
it's you're a ten for ninety minutes. Yes? Is that
easy for you or is that something that you have
to like? Do you have to do something before and after?
Do you know what I mean? How do you maintain
it and not lose your voice and all that shit?

Speaker 3 (08:46):
I did some voice coaching just to try and maintain,
like maintain my voice through the tour. And also I've
discovered this thing, Brett. Let me just make sure I've
got the pronunciation right. X x cher cheese a x
chur cheese exercise. I don't know if I'm going. I
think it's an Italian word. I think it's an Italian word.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. Going.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
And so I've started doing some of that this year
specifically to help so that I could like help with
my breathing in physical and physical energy levels yet so
that I can maintain them, because sometimes on the US tour,
I was doing ninety minutes, stopping the show, finishing the show,
sitting backstage half an now, and then doing ninety minutes again.
So I have spent quite a bit of time maintaining

(09:32):
the sort physical side of my energy levels a bit
more this time.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
But yeah, I've been been doing a lot of touring.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Been in the States, been in Canada, been in Australia,
New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Any places in America where your a particular brand of
edge lording didn't work or where you were.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Late clarified when Brett says edge lording, I have not
gone al right, this is not it's not kill nish
kill toilet.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
This it's irony.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
You know, if you're a you know, maybe a progressive
or to the left of the political spectrum. It's been
a difficult time, and I would say some of my
frustrations at those difficulties have boiled over into my work,
perhaps more so than they have been previously. Yeah, it's
been it's been a really fun The Tory has been
great and the shows have been really fun.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Was there anywhere where it didn't land? I imagine? Not honestly, No, Yeah,
there were so.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
What we did two gigs in Austin on one night,
and I was on dangerous ground in Austin anyway. Yeah,
I'd arrived at Austin hoping to find the Richard linklater
dream of Austin. But what I've arrived into is the
kind of tech pro nightmare. But the two shows that
Austin I did got moved very late to bigger rooms,
like within the same comedy club, and so at the

(10:57):
last minute we shifted them in the you know, you
know me, Brett, My one thing is profit before experience.
So this was definitely this was definitely my decision and
not an administrative error made by my American management, you
know me, profit before anything else, and so we then
having profit, then we then went from having two sold

(11:20):
out shows in ninety seat room to then selling like
a few, like quite a few more tickets in a
three hundred seat room. And it meant that a couple
of people arrived later on, and I would say some
of those people left almost immediately, like almost immediately or
almost immediately, almost immediately. I don't know whether I don't

(11:41):
know whether it was the phrase celebrity homophobe adulled by
dementia or history's worst white South African, but one of
those two phrases, one of those two phrases immediately sent
them to the exit door. But like the rest of
the tour was amazing, and actually some of the best
gigs were in I guess you would call them blue

(12:01):
cities in red states, so like Democrat voting cities, but
that were in Republican states, because I guess those are
the people that feel most connected to you, Those are
the people that feel very connected to the viewpoints that
let's not be around the bush hate speech that I'm
espousing on stage right.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yes, now, what I did really love about your show
because I listened to your podcast twenty This in your
Ears and twenty This Stays the UK. Often. The problem
with your podcast is, you know, it's very it's very topical,
and it's about what's going on in the world, and
it's fucking bleak. Oh my god. I listened to it.

(12:38):
I listened to it and I'm like, Jesus, give me
some hope something, and you almost never do, but in
your show, in your live show, and incredibly uplifting and
powerful and moving and sort of positive ending that I
was not expecting. And it was really really lovely, and
I almost want you to spoil it for the listeners,

(12:59):
but I guess they've got to come see you.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yeah, I would, yeah, come yeah watch the show on
you know whatever disgraced video platform.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
I've managed to.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Sell it to whatever whatever short form web content app
that I'm gonna hindenburg in the next twelve months.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
You can see it on Airbnb. I think you sided
it's in the corner.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I'm definitely I'm definitely trying to shift it to like
red Tube.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
I've been talked. I'm in deep talks with you, Pawn.
It's a very nice nis tell me this what oh
hang on. Oh nice, fuck I've forgotten. Oh nice, right
when you've got to Australia as well. No, you've died.

(13:46):
You're dead again. You're dead again? How did you die? Oh? God?

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Well, I mean, I don't want to get too morbid,
but I mean, based on some of the content of
the show, I guess you could say fucked around and
found out. Based on some of the content of my
stand up show, a supporter of a particular political leader
decided to take matters into their own hands and seek

(14:14):
violent reprisal for comments that I've made about the glorious leader.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Having seen the show, this doesn't surprise me. Well, never mind,
never mind. Maybe you'll have a nice time in heaven.
Maybe you come back. We'll see.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
How was your year, Brett. Oh you did a lot
of touring. You did a lot of touring, did a
lot of touring. You had the time of your life.
I toured three fourteen months.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
I believe I loved it. I loved touring America. Actually
I really loved it. I loved being with my welch
who opened for me. Hilarious, hilarious. It was really good.
It was good. I really enjoyed it. I would do
it again. I would like to see it again. It's film.
The film, The film of it is excellent. I've seen

(15:00):
you know. That's very kindness. Thank you should be Should
we talk about the fact that you're making a film
with Jaylo or I think you can talk about it,
but I don't think I can say much about it experience.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
I don't think you're you're not allowed to say anything
about it, And if anything, you don't have to say
anything for there's not really anything to say. It's just
what I would say is I have a whole section
of my camera roll that is just photographs I've taken
of people after I told that you were making a
film with Jaylo.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
It is mad. There's no getting round. It's absolutely mad.
It's matt every day I'm like, this is mad. Yeah,
every day, it's really mad. This is mental. I can't
believe it. It's very exciting. The idea of you being
in a film with Jelo is very exciting. It's very
exciting to make to make this film. Yeah, she's very
very very good to me actor, very good.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Also, we know from out of sight she's one of
the great movie stars of our age. Like that outsite
is one of the all time great movies and performances.
And we've got you've got to film coming out in
consecutive years. And so I've seen the first one, but
I haven't seen the second one. But I can tell
you right now, I've got my next two troubling bonders
lined up. One percent have my next two troubling bonders

(16:15):
lined up.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
I believe you were the test screening for all of
you that my sister was at. And I believe that
when asked if anyone had an issue with the film,
she said, I don't want to see my brother go
down on someone. Is that right? Yeah? That is that's
word for word.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
What happened. That's word for word, what happened. I was, Yeah,
we were at testing.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
It didn't cut it. They didn't cut it.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Very small screening room in London where just a small
group of people had gathered to give whatever feedback they
thought about the film. And I was sat with your
sister and as soon as the film I did anyone
got any feedback? How straight up, I absolutely didn't need
to see that. Good move, good movie. She was a
complimentary about the film. Yeah, good movie, But I think

(17:08):
you have to take it as a double compliment like
she enjoyed the movie in spite of the fact that
she had to watch you.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well, listen, let's talk about enough with the traveling boners.
Let's talk what are we here for in this? We're
here to do early, arguably early. Our films are twenty
twenty four now very early. It's early for us. I
think now time has passed this twenty twenty four. We've
tried to catch up on everything. We've given it some space,

(17:37):
some time to Breathe was twenty twenty four a good
year for film?

Speaker 3 (17:41):
You know, the more years that we do this, as
I increasingly become more visibly decrepit and haggard and you
remain frozen in amber like a Jurassic Park mosquito, the
more I realized that this almost like cinema is obviously
has its issues in terms of getting people to go

(18:02):
to the movies.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
And you know, we keep hearing box. Obviously it's up Box.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Obviously it's a down the Barbenheimer year, everyone's like we're back.
Then this year everyone was saying we might. We're not
fully back. We're like half back. Our ankles are back
into the cinema. The rest of it's not back. But
the more we do it, the more you realize that
the hopeful thing in all of this is people are
still making great, great movies. Yes, And it's almost a

(18:27):
question of like, where is like mainstream studio cinema that
are people going to see big studio films. That's almost
the question that we should be wrestling and arguing about.
But actually, at kind of independent cinema at a much
smaller price point, it feels like the picture is much rosier.
There are lots of smaller movies getting made and they

(18:48):
are making money and people are going to see them.
And also, I do genuinely think that I do honestly
think that some like a thing like letterboxed is really helping.
I'm as cynical as anybody about a kind of news
social media fans, but I genuinely think letterbox is helping
create a new generation of film nerds who want to
watch films and talk about them and discuss them amongst

(19:11):
their friends. Yeah, and you know, it's sort of encouraging
people to go back and watch older movies because that
whole four favorites thing they get people to do. It
encourages you to you know, like one of the things
that I've noticed with the four Favorites, thing is like
Cassavetes is like really really like having a kind of

(19:32):
renaissance in terms of film lovers. And I think partly
that's because fans of his movies are listing them in
their letterbox top four and you consistently see things like
Opening Night or Women on the Version of Nerves Breakdown
like popping up in people's lists, and is it's making
people go back and watch old movies as well. And
I think I do genuinely think that that is something

(19:53):
to celebrate.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
What's your thought?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Oh my god, I have no idea. I could barely
even do four from this year. Just before did this show,
I texted you saying, can we do a Top twenty?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
And you said, nah, I really struggled. I made you
do that because I had to do it and I
hate it. Yeah, right, But I was like, I'm not
going back.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Do you not think that like in a year where
and I mean we're only talking about one of these
movies because as per Brett specific instructions, we remain where
died to tie completely to UK cinema release or UK
VOD release feel Brexit at.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Least between January first December thirty first in the UK. Yeah,
Nosferatu does not count. Came out New Year Day. No,
No Brutalist does not count. Came out twenty fourth January
in the UNI. Yeah, it's a nightmare.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
We're at the very least in a year talking about
a movie that we will talk about Anora, which is,
you know, whatever it is. I think a six to
seven million dollar movie that has you know, made fifty
sixty million dollars and won an oscar and you know that,
and it's doing very well. There's been there's been a
real spate of lower budget films that people are going
to see. I think it's just encouraging movie studios to

(21:10):
put real money and marketing money behind those kind of
what we've lost is those mid budget movies, you know,
like a movie like like Heat or The Insider or
something like those kind of sixty seventy million dollar movies.
That's the thing that we've lost and maybe we won't
get back. But people are still finding ways to make
really brilliant and interesting films. And when you look back

(21:31):
at the films that came out between those two dates.
In the United Kingdom, brexit means brexit. You do realize
that there's a staggering variety of work that's being done,
and a lot of it is really, really incredible. And
already we know for next year that there's already been
you know, at least five or six stone Cold bangers

(21:52):
that we've already got in the can. For this year,
we're also awaiting I think a new Ryan Coogler movie.
With weeks from a new Ryan Coogler movie. We're so
close to a new PTA. God, I can I can
almost taste that new PTA film sensation. I can feel
it on the tip of my tongue, you know. So
like there's movie, there's good movies getting made, and I think.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
It is just about it.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
We've just we've just lost that kind of mid budget
studio movie. Everything is now either ten million dollars or
two hundred million dollars.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
But like COORL.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Jefferson when he won the adapted screen Playoffcar for American
Fiction said, you know, he put out a kind of
open plead studio saying, look, this was a ten million
dollar movie. You can make twenty of those for one
two hundred million dollar movie, So why not throw some
money into throw some money into that pot. But of
the films that we made. There were a lot of
good movies last year. There were a lot of really

(22:44):
great movies.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, let's do some questions and at the end, whenever
the end comes, we'll do our top ten. The end
has has to come within at least three hours. Brett
it and I've got to make a film. They can
done twenty five minutes. We haven't done any of it.
So right, what's the first film you saw in twenty

(23:10):
twenty four?

Speaker 3 (23:11):
I strongly suspect that you and I have the same
answer for this. It is poor things, Poor things. It
was poor thing. Yeah, that was a big, very very
early UK release, and loved it, really good movie.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
I loved it too, and I was slightly I felt
sort of sorry for the filmmakers and for Emmerstone when
suddenly they were people were saying, this is a film
about pedophile, isn't it, Because it's a grown woman with
the brain of a baby. But there's also a film
where a man has bubbles that come out of his head.
And it's also a film in which this baby, if
it is a baby, can talk within two days. And

(23:45):
then it's like, I don't think we're dealing with a
world of extreme logic here, and I don't think she's
a baby.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
I also think you have to consider whether or not
you think the filmmaker is saying that these are good men,
which I would strongly say I don't think this. I
don't think this movie has is enforcing a moral code
on any of its characters. I'm not sure you're supposed
to come away from it thinking, well, I'll tell you
what those guys are really like.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Ruffalo is a really solid dude. Yeah, he's great in it.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
R He's funny, two phenomenal performances. I mean, Emma Stone
is just she's the best, Like, she's the best anything.
She can do anything, She's genuinely funny, and she can
carry a film like like this almost single handly. But
the supporting cast in this particular instance was really really
Sammy Lovely to see Lovely, to see Jared Carmichael pop up.

(24:38):
That was a real nice treat for the comedy fans.
And Ruffalo. That's as good as Ruffalo's been in a
long time. And I love seeing petty, unpleasant Ruffalo because
I think there's something inherently likable about him as an
on screen presence. I think watching him go full like
shit Frankenstein.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
I thought it was fantastic.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Can I just insert a brief We don't need to
talk about it any more than this, but I would
just say that I went into Poor Things having seen
the trailer, knowing that I was going to have a
great time. I was very skeptical of the other your
gas Stone collaboration because I'm not a huge fan broadly
of anthology films, because I always feel that you go,

(25:25):
you think one of those was great, one of those
was fine, one of those was rubbish, or the worst
version is where you go and you think, I'd actually
have liked to watch a feature based on one of
these films I thought as a as an anthology film experience,
Kinds of Kindness was incredible, and I thought it was
really bleak, really funny in terms of a single joke,

(25:46):
and I wouldn't I don't want to spoil it because
I actually don't. I think a lot of people saw
Poor Things. I'm not sure a lot of people saw
Kinds of Kindness. There is a kind of single joke,
and this sort of gives you an idea of the
tone of the movie. There's a single joke involving a
car crash, and it is one of maybe the funniest
thing I saw in a film last year, maybe just
as a stand like as a single standalone joke, the

(26:07):
car accident in Kinds of Kindness is my favorite single
joke of the year, and just I was totally pleasantly
surprised by how much I enjoyed that movie. If I
was to describe it in a pithy movie post of
Paul quote, I would describe it as being mar Bergman's
I Think you Should leave.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
That makes me want to see it now. It was,
It was.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
It was for the for the fans of Tim Robinson
and ing mar Bergmann. Somehow it's sort of it was
like a sort of you know, it was almost like
an existentialist black comedy sketch show that really zoned in
on some of the great frigilities of masculinity in the
male ego.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
And you know, the cast is fantastic.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Anything Jesse Plemons is in is immediately elevated by his presence.
Stone and your Gooss are moving towards Scorsese Deniero territory
in terms of actor director collaborator Scoot Aise Digabrill.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, I'll allow it. I'll allow it? Yeah, allow it?
What is I allow it? What's the film that scared
you the most in twenty twenty four? Well, I listen.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
We try, we try where possible to keep politics out
of our conversations about cinema. But there were some good
scary movies that I watched last year. I really enjoyed Heretic.
I really enjoyed Heretic.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Hang on was that last year? Yeah? I really, I
really enjoyed Heretic. I love. The best thing about Heretic
is that I've got to change my list now, you
fucking I love Territic. All right, this changes everything. Give
me a second. You know what, I am going to

(27:50):
one hundred percent confirm that that's the case. It was, Yeah,
twenty fourth November. Fuck, well, that ruins my top ten.
Somebody's got to go. Sorry mate, Oh I feel bad
about that, but there you go. Okay, we're back. I
thought Heretic was great. I thought that Hugh Grant was fantastic,
and I thought Heretic did explored the very, very horrifying

(28:13):
premise of how scary it would be to be stuck
in the house with Richard Dawkins. That is a real nightmare.
No one, no one you don't.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
You don't want to be at a party and get
cornered by someone who is too enthusiastic about their atheism,
much less be locked in a house with them.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
So I really liked about Heretic. There's a moment right
at the end, at the very very end spoiler skip
ahead if you've not seen Heretic. At the very very end,
the girl gets out and the other girl had talked
about like how she saw that she would she would
be a butterfly or something, right, and the butterfly lands
on her, and for a second you're like, oh, this

(28:50):
is really cheesy. There's the butterfly, like the friend says,
and then it halve cuts in the butterfly isn't there,
and you go, oh, yeah, this is what faith is.
It's such a good ending. Yeah, yeah, it is a
good ending. Yeah it's it's a really good ending. It was.
It's a really fun performance from Hugh Grant. They're really great.
They're girls in it.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
The girls are really really great in it. I thought
it was really I thought it was really fun. I'm
sure we will talk in some detail about the substance
so we can return to that. But more than anything else,
the scariest film that came out last year was The Apprentice.
That is the scariest movie. That is the most deeply
significant horror movie of the year. Trump begins the first

(29:32):
way like it. If we must frame things exclusively in
superhero movie terms, it's the Donald Trump origin story. It's
a lot about it's a lot about his relationship with
Roy Cone. It's got an incredible performance by Jeremy Strong
as Roy Cone, who is one of the like truly
great American villains of all time and you know, has

(29:54):
been depicted in things like Angels in America, and you know,
is the kind of this Movi posits the idea that
he is the sort of intellectual foundation for Trump and
trump Ism, and he sets up what Trump is. I
also thought it had a very very excellent performance from
Sebastian stan as Donald Trump. He's brilliant in it, and

(30:14):
it could so easily have veered into chricture, and it
only does at the end, but it does in a
very very controlled way. And you watch him, you know,
especially when you know how films are made, it's quite
extraordinary to watch the growth of that performance over the
course of a movie. Because I don't know whether they
shot that chronologically, maybe they did. Sometimes filmmakers do that
to help the performance, but even if they did, you're

(30:36):
going sort of day to day and you're having to
kind of build this performance that all the verbal tics
that escalate over the course of the film kind of
assemble themselves into the kind of Donald Trump character as
it's presented at the very end of the film. And
I thought it was a really really you know, an
incredible two incredible performances. But it's I watched it after

(31:00):
the election, and it's the scariest and bleakest film that
I've seen because of that.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
But it was a really really brilliantly made film. It's brilliant.
I watched it before the election. It's it's brilliant, and
it's it's good because it does like it's quite sympathetic
or empathetic or whatever. Like in the beginning of the
film you sort of feel so for him, like it's
quite yeah, well done, and then in the end you
feel sorry for Roy come like it's not going on

(31:25):
in it. It isn't what perhaps if you haven't seen it,
like it isn't this sort of just angry film that's
really horrible about horrible people. It's actually like quite a
layered emotional portrait. It's good.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
It's neither hatchet job nor I've never know how to
pronounce the word hagiography, hagiography, whatever that word is. It's
not uncritical propaganda, but it's not unempathetic filmmaking. It's not
pure rage, and in a sense it's empathy is actually
what makes it more successful in its criticisms, because it's
trying to understand him as a person. But when it

(31:57):
comes the conclusively comes to are, this is an awful person.
And you know, there is some pretty there's some pretty
staggering stuff in there that you know, is particularly in
terms of his sexual assaults and the allegations around those.
There's some pretty staggering stuff in there in terms of
what it depicts. And you know, there is just an
incredible point in it where they're talking where he's talking

(32:19):
to Roy kind about what they're going to accept in
terms of a settlement because they've been accused of racist
housing policy, and Roy Cone just goes, well, obviously you're
going to have to settle because the housing policy is racist,
Like you know, it's racist, and it was there was
something really weird about watching somebody even though you're watching
a fictionalized movie, and the character that's saying all of
this is Roy Cone, one of truly one of history's

(32:40):
great racists. Like there's something really like oddly like reassuring
about watching someone actually say yeah, yeah, but what you
were doing was incredibly racist. Just realize it, like you
very rarely, like we keep watching news reports with people
like talking around like describing things as being a Roman salute.
And there was something like something oddly like the felt
it felt quite sort of I felt quite relieved to

(33:01):
actually hear it, so we go, yeah, yeah, but that
it was racist, lend properties to black people.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
What was your scariest film? I think it was The
Teacher's Lounge. Did you see that the teachers didn't see it?
Tell me about the Teacher's Lounge. It's one of them.
Films reminded me of the film full Time. Like it's
really small. It's probably set over a week in a school,
and it's this teacher and she's nice and she's a
good teacher, and she's kind and she says inspiring things

(33:28):
and stuff. But it's just this really interesting, like tense
drama because someone stealing in the school and she thinks
she sees one of the women that worked there steal
and she reports the woman and then everything fucking goes
spirals and the woman has a kid at the school
and the repercussions of her trying to do the right thing,

(33:51):
and it turns out she might have done the wrong
thing and maybe it wasn't morally the right thing to
do because this woman needed help, and you know what
I mean, Like everything. Kind of the reason it's like
horror film is because she's constantly her intentions are entirely pure,
but she might be causing terrible things and kind of

(34:12):
ruining people's lives and then is trying to fix it.
And it's like a thriller. It's really tense and so
stressful and kind of relatable because you go, like, yeah,
just keep your maud. I guess the lesson that just
fucking don't do anything. Don't do fucking anything, right, Yeah,

(34:32):
a nice positive message, don't do anything. It's not worth
good movie. That good movie. I've got to watch that.
That sounds great? Yeah, you love you love this, you'd
love it. It's politics with a small p. You'd love it.
What's the film that made you cry?

Speaker 3 (34:50):
The most well, here we are our favorite question of
the year, the two men who are too incorrectly quote tough.
I will say that before I say my main answer,
I will tell you this.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
I actually don't. I actually don't think I've told you this.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
I've learned a very important lesson this year, which is
you have to constantly be confronting your own emotions, because
if you don't constantly take inventory of your emotional state,
you will find yourself weeping at the Robbie Williams Monkey
film because like maybe Monkey, I don't want to get
too heavy in this, but like my grandmother with whom

(35:32):
I'm very close, is suffering from dementia, and I think
I've spent so much of the last couple of years
trying to like ge my mum up, who is the
primary caregiver and who is doing a lot of the work.
You know, there are caregivers that we're very fortunate that
we're able to finance, and we're very lucky as a family,
and lots of families that are going through this aren't
able to do that. So I know how fortunate we are.

(35:55):
But my mum is of the family. The kind of
primary caregiving I think I've spent so much time trying
to like emotion support her that I don't think it
had ever occurred to me that I was really sad
that my Grandma's not really there anymore.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
I think I was. I think I was.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
I think I spent so much time like focusing on
what I've just said to you, which is we're such
in such a fortunate position that we can help as
a family. And also I've been like trying to like,
gee my mom up and say, look, it's she's in
her nineties, She's lived an amazing life, like this is
very sad, but also if she hadn't lived this long,
she wouldn't have got to see all her great grandchildren.
All this kind of stuff that I keep telling myself.

(36:29):
And then there is a bit in the Fucking Robbie
Williams Monkey Movie where Alison Steadman, who is playing his grandma,
says to the Robbie Williams monkey, the start of a
story she's just told a second ago, and the Robbie
Williams monkey looks at his mum, and his mom looks
at the Robbie Williams monkey, and it's like one of
those movies where it's like it's quite an od. The

(36:51):
nose depiction of this often a moment where someone repeats themselves.
There is a real danger in films if you repeat yourself,
someone will be like, but that's the end of that.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, it's like if you have a son of your
dead said it twice.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Smash cut to her in a bathrood mumbling about the wall. Yeah,
we know what was going on. But as soon as
soon as the mum looked at the Robbie Williams Monkey
I immediately burst into tears and it was like, it
was probably the single moment that made me cry the most.
Always be constantly taking an inventory of your emotions.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
That would be my tip for everybody.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
Because otherwise you will weep under Robbie Williams Monkey film.
You will get concerned looks from other people at the
Robbie Williams Monkey film.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
It's such a sweet monkey. I get it about your grandma,
but the film that actually Williams.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah, and also like you know, the monkey's relationship with
his grandma is quite similar to my relationship with a grad.
Like I was always quite in trouble upon with everyone
except my grandma really my whole life. So it's like
there is some other autobiographical residence. That being said, the
film that made me cry the most was All of
Us Strangers, and All of Us Strangers made me worry
so much that I had to ring out my beard

(38:03):
because so much water.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Over the film's running time.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
By the end, I was like, it was like I
was trying to wring the moisture out of an incredibly
sodden sponge. That's what my beard was like at the
end of that movie.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
And I'm going to give you a different answer because
that is also I want to talk about that film
for another cos that is true. Me and Mavis went
to see All the Pustrangers and we cried so much.
I cried so much in that film, probably all the
way for it. But the other film that made me
cry the most, it's also one of my favorite films
of the year, was My Old Ass. My Old Ass
is a masterpiece. And if you haven't seen it, don't

(38:47):
let that title mislead you into thinking it's not an
incredibly moving, beautiful film. My Old Ass is magic. It's
a magical film. I think it's so good. I think
I put it in the category of like School of
Rock and things like that. Where you go this sort
of film sounds like you've seen it before, you've seen it,
you know what it is. It's done so beautifully and

(39:09):
it's actually really deep, but it's like a fun, high
concept idea. And the idea is a nineteen year old
girl takes acid, takes mushrooms with their friends and meets
herself as a thirty nine year old in a sort
of like time travel. So she spends the night with
herself as a thirty nine year old self who is
different and less fun and has more issues than she has,

(39:30):
and it's like, what happened to you? And she says,
whatever you do, avoid this boy. And then this boy
comes into the young girl's life and it's really funny
and it's really fun, but boy, it's fucking beautiful and
moving at the end of it. What a brilliant film.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
One of the other misleading things about it is that
it's an Aubrey Plaza movie, when in fact she's in
it maybe three times. Yeah, she plays the older version.
And it's set in a really beautiful part of the world.
It's like these the Lakes in Muskoka, about a couple
of hours outside Toronto, And I actually only know that
because my partner's family are all from there, her mum's family,

(40:06):
and so I've been around that part of the world.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
It's really beautiful.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
And yeah, it's got all of the elements of teenager
leaving home to go to college in Toronto. So she's
going to be a few hours away, she's moving, she's
leaving home, but it's about her, like her relationship with
her parents, her relationship with her friends, but it's framed
by these conversations that she has with herself twenty one,

(40:29):
twenty twenty one years in the future. And I think Brett,
I can see you relating to it because obviously, if
you encountered yourself in twenty years time, your first instigrape
to try and get off with yourself and feel your ass.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
And also the girl who plays the lead, whose name
is Mazes Stella, Yeah, wonderful good. Yeah, she's so good,
and it's so I don't know how to describe it.
The thing that I thought was really great about my
old ass is it's made by a woman who is
not known to be and the way that the young
girls talking it felt so real and natural and yeah,

(41:06):
you know where it's like, I don't know how to
write that stuff. It's always risky writing young people and
making him sound cool or you know, it felt. I
don't know how she captured it. I'm sure she let
them improvise and do stuff, but her and her two
friends feel so real and she's so charming and funny,
and it's such a like find. It's when them performances

(41:27):
go like, what a find this is. Although I'm sure
she's done millions of things before that, but.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
It's definitely got the feeling of, you know, something like
Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's bo like that, like, oh, okay,
this is the first This is probably a person We're
going to see a lot of movies yeah, down the years,
and it will always be nice to remember that this
was the kind of first time you saw them. Because
it's such a such a charming film. The high conceptness
of it is handled so lightly but in such a

(41:55):
well executed way. Aubrey Closet is not in it as
much as opposed to suggest, but when she is in it,
her final speech, which again for a movie like this,
it creeps up on you. The final speech, and we
won't give anything away about it, but it is an
absolute show stopper. Like it's an extraordinary It's a fantastic
piece of writing and performance because the plotting of it,

(42:18):
the way that it leads you towards twist, maybe is
a misnomer, but the kind of revelation of everything that's
been underpinning the conversations between the older and the younger
versions of the same girl is such a kind of
explosion of emotion.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
And it is a real Weepye.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
The end is a real And I know that we've
lost all credibility down the years with the listeners of
this podcast, because you and I seem to like have
a cry because we go to the shops and see
a packet of crisps that looks at and we're capable
of investigate anything with emotional depth and seeing elements of
our own lives reflected back to us in it. And
we really are the boy who literally cried wolf.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, you will cry my own but you will cry.
You will cry and mildness. I do have to say
for the record when I say Mazie Stella is a
real find. She did do one hundred and nineteen episodes
of Nashville before this. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's her debut,

(43:16):
but we.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Are the ultimate film boys, the ultimate film boys. It
doesn't matter what you've done in television.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
If it's a film, we don't care.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
I definitely talked about this on this show. But after
I saw Inola Holmes on Netflix in the lockdown, I
said to Amy, my partner, boy, this lead actress is
quite the fine and I was like, that is Millie
Bobby Brown from Stranger Things? What planet do you live on?

(43:48):
Planet movies?

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Baby? Thank you? Now, what is the film that you
loved that maybe not everyone will, but you don't care.
It's a it's a banger.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Well, here's what I would say, Brett, what do I
like in films? Films about a sad, dysfunctional man being
sad and dysfunctional. And there were a few, There were
a few films that conformed to that very specific genre type,
but none of them conform to it more bleakly than

(44:19):
the film Queer.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
It was another.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Okay, it's we got double duty your goss and we
got double duty Gradanino. And I'm sure we will return
to Challengers because obviously we know the question everyone's waiting
for is sexist all of the year? Spoiler alert. My
tennis racket was pointing to the heavens. Let's come back
to it. But we'll come back to it. We'll come

(44:43):
back to it.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
In this nothing makes me happier than when the is
hitting political comedian of our generation. That's a that makes
me proud.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
I feel that you and I pull each other down
to each other's levels.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
So for you, it's not good for me.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
I will make you talk about the Donald Trump movie
as a horror movie.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
I will force you to do that.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
And you will also force me to pretend my pictuses
a tennis racket when I watched Challenges. Queer is a
film based on a book by William S. Burrows and
is set in Mexico City with a sort of Sojian
into Ecuador, and it's basically about it's a book that

(45:42):
is based on burrows experiences of being in Mexico City
and the kind of community of American gay immigrants that
find themselves living in that part of the world at
that time. And you know the in the process of this,
he kind of is out there having kind of of
one night stands with men in the city. He ends

(46:03):
up meeting a guy called Eugene Allerton. The character is
called William Lee that Daniel Craig plays, and it's essentially
a story about him trying to sort of fully express
his emotional love for this man. And you know, he
can kind of express himself. He express his sexual impulses physically,

(46:23):
but not emotionally, and it kind of other than that.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Not a lot really happens.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
And it's about mood and tone, and it's about loneliness
and yearning. And it's set in Mexico City, but really
it's set inside the mind of the protagonist. And it's
a fantastic performance and it's an incredible film about feeling
lonely and alienated from your own emotional self and your

(46:53):
own body.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Really, wait, is this the film he most related to?

Speaker 3 (46:59):
No, Daniel Craig has way too much sex with people
at this movie for me to relate to him. But
it has it has things that sometimes annoy me in films,
which is anachronous uses of music. You know, there's Song's
Been It by Prince, There's an incredible Shinado cant of
cover of All Apologies by Nirvana. There's a brilliant, brilliant

(47:20):
use of a New Order song when he's taking heroin
that it might just be that might be my scene
of the year. And it's a film about feeling disconnected
from your emotions, feeling disconnected from your body. You know,
it's also a film about what you turn people into
when you don't let them live openly the way that
they want to live, and like the pressure is exerted
on you by society. William Burrows is also not a

(47:42):
great guy. I think that is putting it very, very mildly,
and it explores the kind of complexity of his character,
and you know, the whole thing is feels set in
someone's consciousness and it has that feeling of a dream
in the best possible way. Scenes kind of bleed into
each other at point the logic of what you're watching

(48:03):
doesn't seem to track from moment to moment, as sometimes
trying to retrace the steps of a dream don't track logically.
And I thought it was just beautifully made, incredibly sad.
I know that a lot of people didn't like it,
and I also know that very few people went to
see it based on its box office, but I think
it's a really I thought it was a very special

(48:25):
film and a very very special performance from Daniel Craig,
and I am sort of thrilled that we are in
this post James Bond era where he is going back,
you know, before James Bond he was in Yeah, he's
like he was in like them.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
He's in that like haneive.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Kureeshi movies, like he was in The Mother and he
was like a theater actor as well and friends in enough.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
Absolutely, And that's not to say that he hasn't you know,
been doing interesting work this entire time. And that's not
even to say that his James Bond films are not great,
because some of them are really good. But I definitely
feel like this like older version of Craig, and it
really plays on the fact that he is simultaneously and
has always been haggard and beautiful, Like even when he's

(49:09):
a younger man, he's both beautiful and wind swept, and
it's very sad and very sexy. And then it ends
up you know, it has one of those kind of
flashboward sequences where the character has have been aged up
with prosthetics, which again, there's so many things about this
film that I would normally say are things that designed

(49:31):
to irritain me that I absolutely loved and I really
thought it was a very beautiful film about sadness and
alienation and loneliness and how to attempting to kind of
push through all of your defenses, some of which, in
the cases of these gay men in the nineteen fifties,

(49:51):
are put in place because of societal and legal prohibitions,
but some of them that are also put in place
because of their own kind of emotionally close off natures.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
What year is it's set. It's set in nineteen fifty right, interesting.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
I thought it was a really really fantastic movie. Again,
great Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, and also again
like a point of interest for all of us is
It's written by Justin Kuritzkiz, who wrote Challenges as well,
and who is again for the parasocial film fans amongst
us is the partner of Celene Son, who wrote Past

(50:30):
Lives who We Love. Yeah, I think it's the most
aggressive and again we'll come back to Challenges, But it's
the most aggressive version of one for them and one
for me that I can think of in the last
few years. In terms of like Gwandandina, it felt like
Challenges was a film designed to be seen by big audience,
and I loved it. For that, but Queer felt like
a very very dark, bleak, personal piece that has a

(50:53):
really profound understanding of what it means to feel lonely.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
I loved it. Yeah, okay, really good. What was your
film that people didn't like? My hot take of the
year is Joker Too? Joker Fully ad, which was absolutely hated, hated,
badly received. I think it's like twenty Toms or less.
People hated it. They're furious. I didn't go and see

(51:17):
it because I thought I didn't love Joker one, and
I thought I don't want to see Joker two. I'm
in no way excited about this. That's where I am currently.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
I didn't watch it because I thought I don't want
to put myself through that again.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
And everyone hated Joker Too. They hated it. And then,
and I hate to say, I watched it on a plane,
but I did watch it on a plane because we
were doing our films of the Year, and I thought,
you know what, I've got to do my due diligence.
You know, I'm a good boy. I have to watch
all the films. So I watched Jaka two and it
blew me away. I think Don't is a fascinating even

(51:53):
if you don't like it. It is fascinating because it's like,
I think it's one hundred and thirty million or something.
It is a very expensive film in which your man,
Todd Phillips, the rights director, is going fuck you, he's
giving he's just saying fuck you for two and a

(52:15):
half hours. And it is so fascinating because it is
like a film made to tell you you're wrong for
enjoying Joker the way that you enjoyed it. You know
that we talked we've talked about it a lot with
Fight Club, this idea with Fight Club, that Fight Club
is this great film that got kind of co opted
by the wrong people. And we've always talked about like,

(52:35):
would David Fincher if he could, would David Fincher want
to say to the people that saw Fight Club as aspirational?
Would he want to say, you're wrong, that's not the
point of the film. You're missing the point of the film. Yeah,
but he wouldn't. He wouldn't get involved, you know, he
leaves it. Joker Too feels like an incredibly expensive way
of Todd Phillips saying you're wrong for how you enjoyed Joker. Okay,

(53:01):
and it's like, I want to spoil a bit of
it for you, but like it's good, by the way,
it's not boring, as in it's like, you know, he's brilliant.
The acting's very well made, very well crafted, and the
acting is very good. But it is set in prison.
Joper is in prison and we are following the court
case in which he's having to prove if he's insane
or not. And he's representing himself, and there's musical numbers,

(53:22):
and he meets Lady Gaga and there are these musical
numbers in which he's not a good singer and she's
she is a good singer, but like they're kind of
not great musical numbers, like they're in their heads or whatever.
So it's kind of none of it is it's almost
like anti entertaining, like it's trying, because it's also going like, oh, oh,

(53:44):
you know, bros that love Joker, you know what you
don't like musicals, here's fucking an hour and a half
of musical numbers that aren't even good that you and
then he in the end. This is the big spoiler
where I was like blown away, is that he represents
himself in the end as Joker dressed up as Joker.

(54:05):
And in the end, so the whole film is this
kind of nothing's happening, you know, no action, there's been
no violence, nothing has happened, and you're kind of waiting
for Joker to explode and kill everyone or do something unbelieved,
you know, and he doesn't. And in fact, what happens
at the very end is in his big sort of
show stopping speech to the courtroom, he kind of confesses nothing.

(54:28):
He says, I'm nothing. It was all just an act
because I'm a lonely, fucking loser, and that is the end.
It isn't like and then he turns into joking kills everyone.
He goes, I'm a fucking nothing, pathetic loser. And then
he goes to meet Lady Gaga, who was in love
with him, and she goes, no, I've fancied you when

(54:52):
I thought you were like the Joker, but you're just
a fucking sad loser and I'm not interested. And that
is it. That's what happens in the film. It doesn't
then resolve and he goes, oh no, no, really, I'm
a tough guy Joker. He literally goes, I'm a pathetic
loser nobody, and he doesn't get the girl because he admits,
and then something does happen, but at the very end,

(55:14):
but that's I'll leave that for you. But it is
like you keep waiting. The film is almost toying with you, like,
don't worry the thing you want to have is going
to happen, and it doesn't. And it's so interesting, and
part of me is like, a it's sort of bold
that he's just gone, fuck, He's burned the house. It
is such a huge like I'm burning this whole thing

(55:34):
to the fucking ground because I don't like what it became.
But on the other hand, part of me goes, isn't
that the Joker, Like that is the most Joker thing
of all to go because the whole thing with the
Joker is I want to watch the world burned, like
people don't laugh. The Joker isn't fun. Yeah, So Joker
too is like Joker two is like you want a

(55:55):
Joker film, here's a Joker film. It's not fun, and
I'm going to burn it all to the fucking ground. Wow,
it's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
The thing that's interesting to me is that, which so
I'm posing this just as a question to you. There's
a lot of things you've said in that movie where
it feels a bit didactic, but also it has like
it's such as contempt for its audience, actively angry with
its audience, and angry with its characters. Now, those are
all of the things you don't like in films. Yes,
but I don't like it.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Yeah, I agree, Well, except I think that Wack in
Phoenix is such a good actor that you are sympathetic
empathetic to him all the way through because he's just great.
I think it has it doesn't hate its characters. That's
a really good question. I don't think it hates its characters.
I think it hates its audience, and that's interesting. But
I don't think I think it likes him. I think

(56:45):
it feels him, and it likes the prison guard like
it's there's some it's very well made, like it's made right. Yeah,
but I think it does hate. It hates a certain
huge part of its original audience, and it wants to
tell me right, and you're right. Normally I wouldn't enjoy that. Yeah,

(57:05):
I'm interested in that. I think because it's because it's
so unusual, and so it's like a two hundred and
thirty million dollar films. He's burned the fucking house down.
Like if this were a small indie film, you might go,
what's the point. But he's got studio money to make
the biggest film of all time and what he's done
with it is gone. It's it's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
For Brett was doing the reverse piece fees into the
camera whilst making your fart noise.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
It's wild and it's not boring, like it's well made.
I was never bored, but it is a It is
just sort of you don't see. I don't think I've
ever seen anyone spend that much money telling people to
go fuck themselves. And I've got to admire that. You've
got to admire that. Well, you've got to that.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
I will say that you talking about it has for
the first time made me want to see the second
Joker movie because I hated the first Joker movie. I
hated it, but not I didn't hate the politics of it.
I actually didn't. I wasn't particularly troubled by any of
the I thought, if anything, the politics of that movie
were just like, we need better financing for mental health facilities. Yeah,
I thought.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
I didn't have a problem with that side of it.
I hated it on its own terms as a piece
of filmmaking. I really didn't make it at all, And
so I thought, well, I'm not going to see the
second one. But I am intrigued by this idea of
Todd Phillips kind of being at war with his audience,
and you know that that's that's an interesting thing to do.
And like you say, it's definitely way more interesting than

(58:39):
it was a two hundred million dollar comic book.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
And whether whether it's whether it's right or wrong, or
good or bad, I don't I could argue all the
sides of it. It's definitely interesting. It's definitely not what
anyone wanted for Joker too, except you, and I admire
that what is the film that means the most to

(59:01):
you because the experience you had seeing it?

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Okay, So I would definitely say for me this year
it was watching monkey Man was a really really special experience.
It was probably also my favorite action movie of the year.
It probably the Hotel attack is probably my favorite kind
of sequence of the year. So, like, I don't know
dav Hotel, I've never met him, but I went to

(59:26):
the premiere of Monkey Man in London, just as a
I don't know how to say this famous Brown. I
was there in my capacity as famous Brown.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
You got it.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
Listen if it goes you in monkey Man, You've got
Monkey Man. I don't mind being on the famous Brown
media list. And so I went to see it with
a couple of my other friends who were also you know,
famous Browns, and I watched it in screen one at
Picture out Central, which is one of the great cinema screens.

(59:57):
It's one of the great cinema screws. I've ever been
to it in the whole world. And I went to
watch it and I was sat with I was sat
either side of me. I was sat with my friend's
nick esh and Bishop and we watched the movie and
there was a point in the movie where for no reason,
bony M starts playing. And the only reason that is
there is there is like a generation of South Asian parents.

(01:00:20):
There are like as in our parents that are just
weirdly fucking obsessed with bony M.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Why do you think that is?

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I have no idea. I don't know why it is.
Brian Adams is like massive in India. I don't know
why it is. This is like weird things that have happened,
like culturally, like bits of Western culture that the idea
is really embraced. And for some reason, a specific generation
of South Asians embraced Bondy m And I think that
the Bonya moment and all of us laughing at the

(01:00:46):
Bonya moment crystallized why I think that was such a
special experience, because that film felt like it was made
by brown nerds for brown nerds, and I watched it
with Brown nerds as a Brown nerd. It just felt
like and again I've never met dev it just felt
like one of us had made a film, like someone

(01:01:06):
who shared so many of our life experiences and perspectives
on things had made a film that was a representative
of the things that we grew up watching, the action movies,
the kung fu movies, you know, even up to things
like like it feels very John WICKI, especially when he
wears the suit and tie at one point. We all
grew up loving these kind of Western action films that

(01:01:29):
largely had white actors, or Eastern action films that had
East Asian actors in them, and so it felt like
he had taken it all of the elements of our
childhood and put them into a movie for us to watch.
And I watched it with you know, people who I
really love who also had the same experience with me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
It was the you know, it was the brown nerd
dream and you turn into your fairs cat. It's all
gone a bit John Wiki, isn't it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
It's also it's a banging movie. It's a banging action movie.
The action scenes are great. Dev is so like movie
star handsome in it. It's also got a really interesting
sort of political subtext. They gain has been slightly sanded
down because they did have they did change the they
in the grade. They've changed the coloring of one of

(01:02:19):
the parties to try and I think it just visually
distance it from what it is, which is a critique
of the Hindu Nationalist ruling party in India. And I
think that they've they've changed that party that I think
that there was a hope maybe that it would help
secure it, get it as secured as a released in India,
which I don't think it still officially did. But in

(01:02:42):
any case, it's an incredible action film, and you know,
I like action movies regardless of their political affiliations. But
this was a rare one that actually was trying to
have a diga, you know, was and was also using
the iconography of Hindu Like. So one of the other
things that we all grew up with, if the British
southdy nerd community is partially oxygenated, certainly the Hindu chapter

(01:03:04):
of it, by the fact that when we were kids,
our parents to try and like get us into Hinduism
would buy us these Arma chad thra cover comic books,
which were graphic novels based on Hindu mythology, and so
we all read comic books based on Hindu mythology. And
that's another really important element of Monkey Man, because Monkey
Man is steeped for a movie that is, you know,

(01:03:27):
ostensibly criticizing Hindu nationalists.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Is Monkey Man a real comic from that or made
up for this film.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
It's taking Hanuman, which is the kind of monkey god
from the Ramina and using the imagery of that as
being like using the imagery of that to build like
an action movie persona around. So it is very much
steeped in Hindu mythology, and it is critical of Hindu
nationalist politics, and all of that makes it sound terribly worthy,

(01:03:57):
which it isn't. It's just an absolutely banging action film.
And you can go why and have absolutely no concept
that any of that's going on. But for the if
you know the circumstances in India, and also if you
grew up on comic book Hindu indultrination, and whether or
not it's left any religious belief in any of us,
it's really open to debate. But what it has left

(01:04:17):
us all with his love of comic books, I think
our parents were trying to turn us into Hindus and
now we're all just like experts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
That's why you love.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Like my friend Nikos who I was at with, literally
wrote a Spider Man comic last year, Like he literally
wrote a Spider Man comic, and it's like it was
a movie by brown nerds for brown nerds. And the
fact that I was able to watch it in a
room of brown nerds, some of whom are my best friends,
made me so happy and I was so thrilled about it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
What I really liked about that film is I love
that death Hotel made himself John Wiki, Like I really was, like,
I know, he want to do action film was never
getting cast in him. And not only did he prove
himself as an action hero actor. Like he's fucking brilliant
in it, and he looks great in it. But that
is some seriously good directing. I can't believe it's his

(01:05:12):
first film. There's a sequence in the middle of action
sequence that's like one of the great action sequences, and
I don't know how he did it, and I don't
think it was a big budget. It's really impressive. I
think he's got shut down in COVID all sorts of stuff.
It's an incredibly accomplished Oh a nightmare. He broke his
hand at one point.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
They had to move the whole they had to move
countries at one stage, Like it was a complete it
was a complete nightmare.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
It's very good.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
But yeah, he's a very good movie. What's your answer
for this question?

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
I think my answer to this and I'm sorry again.
This is the second film I watched on a plane,
which is bad because I don't really approve of watching
films on the plane. But I really hope that the
listener will forgive me because I'm very busy and I'm
really trying to see all the films, and sometimes sometimes
I just had to watch him on a plane. All right,
but I do it the best I can put my
it's really close to it, mon might really last. We'll

(01:06:04):
do the best I can. And I know it's not optimal,
but the fact that I love these films on a
plane means how amazing these films must be. Anyway, this
film and the reason I'm pigging this one at this
particular thing is I saw the TV Glow. I love
the film. I saw the TV Glow and the film
itself is very dreamy. It seems to exist in the
state just before you fall asleep. There's a kind of

(01:06:25):
tone to it, a sound to it, a kind of
somnambulence some yeah, yeah, that word. And I watched this
film at like three in the morning on a plane
where I was almost half asleep, and I was, so
should I should I start? Because I was just like,
I'm never going to see this film. I thought I'd

(01:06:45):
fall asleep, you know. I just started to see if
it's interesting. And I didn't fall asleep, but I was
lying down, like I wasn't lying down. I was like
leaning back, trying not to like I was half asleep
to start it, and I got lost in this film,
the film that feels like a dream. I was like
in a near dream state watching that dreamy film in
the sky, you know what I mean. And I in

(01:07:07):
a way, I was like, I think this might be
the perfect way to watch this film. I loved it,
and I'm going to say this, I found it really interesting.
I saw the TV glow and I had a theory
about what it was about. And then later I read
up about it and it's lots of people saying how
it's a film about the trans experience, and I found
that really interesting and I see that, but it completely
worked for me in a different way. I thought it

(01:07:27):
was about something else, and I am sure all of
these things can exist, but for me, what it was
about was, amongst other things, was this idea of having
something inside you that is special, but the fear of
ever taking the risk and showing that. And so it
so in a way, it was like, there's this guy
and he makes friends with this girl at school and

(01:07:49):
they love this TV show and the girl, the girl
basically says to him, we're special, like we don't belong
in this small town. We're better. There's something inside you
that's very, very special, and she runs off to go
and be that special thing. And he doesn't because he's scared,
and he spends his whole life essentially hiding and staying

(01:08:09):
where he is. And at the very end of the film,
he sort of is so frustrated by his small existence.
He cuts himself open and inside he sees a light
and it is like proof you really are special, you
have this special thing inside you. And then he sews
it up and he ends the film by apologizing to
everyone for screaming. Yeah. And so for me, I found

(01:08:31):
it interesting when I read about the trans thing. I
was like, oh, how fascinating, because to me it also
worked as just a film about not exploring whether it's
trans or whether it's anything. You're you're being brave enough
to live your full self, which I suppose is the
same thing. Yeah, I thought that was absolutely correct.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
I mean, I'm so pleased that you enjoyed this movie,
because this is absolutely one of my films of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
I thought it was so special.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
So, yeah, it is, as you say, these two teenagers
in the late nineties who are become obsessed with a
TV show called The pink Opake. Yeah, and basically everything
that you said is the kind of plot of the movie.
And there is real argument about whether the ending is
supposed to be sad or happy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
I found it heartbreaking.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
I've read other people talk about it saying, no, it's
actually the fact that he gets to see that he
was still.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Special inside his whole life.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
And that's actually an argument that it's a happy ending
that he didn't it didn't kill the fact that he
lived like that didn't kill the.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Part of him that was so magical and special.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
And so the first thing to say about this movie
is that when I watched it, it was me and
a bunch of children in the cinema. I never felt
more like I was a teacher, like marshaling a school
field trip in my entire life. And the movie starts
and I'm thinking, like, what are these kids getting out
of it? Because the pink Opake, the fake TV show
within the film.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Is so bad. And I think it's more.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
I think it's an accumulation of more of TV shows
than I think it is initially because I think it's
filled things like Charmed that are also part of it,
But it's so referencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even
down Yeah it had yeah, yeah, it has that definitely
that that sort of mystical kids TV thing. But the

(01:10:12):
font of the Pinko Pake's credits is similar to the
Buffy font. And there is and again for Buffy fans
who watched this movie, I don't want to spoil it
for you, but there is a one single shot Buffy
cameo that is absolutely incredible, Like there's an actress who
turns up from Buffy just for one scene and I
I'm given to understand. So, and there is a Buffy

(01:10:33):
reboot coming, and Chloe Show, the director of Nomadland, is
supposed to be involved in it. I would say I
would insist on them signing Jane Sheenburn, who directed this film,
to direct some of that Buffy or certainly be involved
at a kind of executive producer level, because this woman,
like It's Lake, is a Buffy fan, and so I

(01:10:55):
and the thing that I loved about because I think
this might be the film that I related to the
most this year, and it's the great the best thing
about films. Every year we talk about this. At some
point one of us makes reference to your favorite quote
of all time, which is rogerie but describing cinema as
the great big empathy machine. And this movie is a
perfect example of that, because I don't know what the

(01:11:18):
trans experience is.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
I've never lived that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
I've read books about it, I've listened to albums about it,
but I don't know what that experience is viscerally, that's
not my life. But I do know what it means
to be a sad kid in a small town, Like
we know that, you know, like we know that, and
we also know what it means to try and drown
that sadness in fictions and to use someone's art as

(01:11:42):
a way of managing the deep sadness you feel by
becoming obsessed with these shows and like almost wanting to
escape your own reality so much that you sink into
a completely different world. Like I remember as a kid
watching things like Buffy and feeling like when it started
I was in Sunnydale, it was it was immersive to me.
And the way that they like so Owen is the

(01:12:06):
kind of protagonist and Maddie is the person that he
meets and befriends, and she tapes the pink opake off
television again, such a generationally specific experience. That's why I
was fascinated by all these kids watching it because it's like, well,
I didn't have Sky, So my friend used to have
to tape shows off Sky for me, and so she
tapes a pink opake for him and writes on the
VHS things about the episode. And that kind of fandom

(01:12:29):
of a show is something I know about so well.
And I also know that sometimes the fandom of those
shows was a way of me distracting myself from being sad.
And so I have that kind of feeling of empathy
for it, and then it brings me to confront the
idea of what maybe it might be like to have

(01:12:50):
gendernice for it. So it's something that through the through
my own experience, it pushes me to be more of
an empathetic person because I know, I don't know what
that experience is, but I know what that sadness is.
And so you suddenly, through our lives, we've been transported
just for a second into the emotional life of someone

(01:13:10):
who's lived that experience, and we meet we're all getting
to meet in the middle through this really magical and
special film. And so he's the kind of manifestation of
that rogery but idea of cinema as the empathy machine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
And I really think.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
This is such a beautiful and special special film.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Yeah, agreed, I'd agreed. And I also think there's a
moment in it where quite late in it where he
watches the Pinker Peg again and thinks it's shit. Yeah,
and it's such a sad but it's like it's on him.
It's like a real like he's giving up on meaning. Yeah,
like the show was always the show. And there's an
argument where don't go back and look at stuff from

(01:13:50):
when you eat because you'll be disappointed. But it's also
like he's giving up on the beauty of it. Yeah,
it's meant to him. Yeah, great movie, really, really so good.
I'd really urge everybody to go and watch that film.
I think it's really spectacular.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
So that was the first of a two parts special
with Nish and Brett. Check back in next week for
more giddies and greatness, the perfect conclusion to this double feature.
Be sure to check out the Patreon page at patreon
dot com. So that's Brett Goldstein, where you get extra
chat and video at various tiers and otherwise. If you
fancy leaving a note on Apple podcasts, that would be

(01:14:29):
lovely too, But make it a review of your favorite
film much more fun and it can be like the
reviews section of movie where people use huge words and
big phrases like ostentatiously directed and ardently relished and so on.
I love it. Thank you so much to Niche for
his time and the presence on the podcast. Thanks to
Scrubia's Pip and the Distraction Pieces Network, thanks too. And

(01:14:52):
this is where Brett thanks me for editing and producing
the podcast, so I say it is a pleasure. Thanks
to iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network for
hosting the podcast, and thanks to Adam Richardson for the
graphics and Lisa Lidin for the photography. Catch us next
week for part two, the conclusion to the absolutely untime
frankly Early Films of the Year twenty twenty four special

(01:15:14):
featuring nish Kumar. But that is it for now. I
hope you're all very well and in the meantime, have
a lovely week and now, more than ever, be excellent
to each other. SI