Jack Carey - Writer, Producer

Joining me this week, Jack Carey

Jack is an RTS winning development executive producer writer from South Wales, named as one of Edinburgh TV Festival's "Visionaries" for next generation talent in the industry.

Jack has developed and produced award nominated, headline-grabbing, series for Sky History, SBS and the BBC, as well as viral online content for Channel 4.0, Hansh and BBC SESH. 

I was introduced to Jack through our mutual friend, Mark Evan, Mark did the soundtrack to both our short films. 

Jack hosts his own horror podcast FirstFrights

Jack's Instagram:

My letterboxd: 

My film Reel Terror: 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Your Life in Film. I'm your host, Ted Bennett. Joining me this week, Jack Carey. Jack is a writer, producer. He's done lots of work for the BBC, Channel 4, Sky. He's everywhere. He's a lovely bloke as well. Jack wrote the short film End of Days. I know Jack through Mark Evans. Mark did the soundtrack to both of our films. I got introduced to Jack that way. Jack's film End of Days stars Larry Dean. Larry is uh one of the new cast members of SNL UK. So we open up our conversation talking about that. As a, you know, as a filmmaker yourself, you're also aware that that thing of the accessibility of anyone can pick up their phone and make something. And it's like, that's excellent. But doesn't necessarily mean we should all be doing it. But it is also excellent there are some people who couldn't previously have afforded they've, you know, the cost of entry was too high for them, and now all you need is your phone, and you can go and make your little stories come true, and even if just doing it for you and your friends is all you want, that's excellent. So it is difficult when it comes to things like the TikTok generation of comedy. And I I I saw an interesting thing that said that all these comedians they've never worked a room before. So they don't actually know how to work with an audience, so they start telling their jokes, they get heckled, and then they just they got nothing. They freeze, they can't handle it anymore. And you're like, Yeah, you've really gotta you've gotta try it everywhere to really find out whether it works for you. But I don't know. I'm I'm I can't imagine they're gonna blindly go into a UK SNL. I I imagine they've thought about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, I think so. Is it interesting you say that? You know, I've I've heard horror stories as well of the kind of like from working with a few comedians as well, it's like, oh, you know, there's this kind of snobbery, especially the kind of pre-Tik tock generation, which is kind of like, oh, you know, they're not they're not match fit, yeah. They're not real, they're not proper. But it's interesting, you know. I think why I don't get too sort of depressed about stuff like this, is that it's all a big ecosystem, and you inevitably see most of the people who break out on TikTok end up going to traditional media anyway, and it all kind of feeds into each other. It's it's as you said, it's great that everybody it's a bit more a lot more meritocratic and egalitarian, but really everyone ends up doing the same things.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Everyone ends up on strictly, that's why I always think and if you if you end up on strictly, you're fucking thankful that your career's taken you that far. I think as well, you know, there are there's always been um there's always been people who think they can do it, and then there's always been people who can do it. It's just that there's been fewer entry points. Now it just means that there's more people who are good who you just didn't experience before.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

And hopefully that you know blows up. I think what I found very interesting was that some TikTok people ended up working for dropout and then they went from dropout to SNL, and you just think like, well, that's wonderful. That there's a path that they may never have gotten before. Yeah. And they're good enough. If they weren't good enough, SNL wouldn't take them. I mean, whether SNL is still as good as it should be, it's its own thing. Yeah, but it is interesting that they like you've got to have something to a mass audience to be put on strictly.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

You know, it doesn't matter whether you can't perform to an audience in your TikToks and on stand-up, if you've got the thing that the TV wants to see, you've got the thing. So that's great. Yeah, and it's I wouldn't do strictly.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

No, you you say you say that.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Oh, I take it take it in a heartbeat, mate. Watch me salcering in a week. So uh what else have you been uh up to recently?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Oh, what have I been up to recently? That's uh that's a good question. I'm working at the moment, um, I'm producing a uh a three-part uh music documentary series for BBC, which is uh nice and very exciting. Um, and then alongside that, just sort of uh chipping away at my next uh short next. This is kind of a a sci-fi black comedy um short film called Unmanned, which is about a drone operator who uh sort of strikes up uh a friendship with his AI assisted drone, which is quite funny. It's quite Black Mirror, it's kind of a bit of an odd couple comedy.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

That's quite nice. Yeah, so which is I uh I had a story a few years ago about a AI drone who well, an AI um well, an artificial intelligence on a spaceship who got bored and woke up their passenger because they were bored and they wanted to hang out with someone. And I thought like that's like that's such a f the idea of the AI just deciding like oh let's let's do something, let's just do something. Yeah, I really like it. So, you know, I hope you get yours off the ground. I do want to see how that gets played out.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

No, yeah, hopefully too. Is it the the whole conceit is that he's uh it's a suicide drone that um gains sentience and doesn't want to die anymore. So I actually don't actually don't like killing people, and it's the whole moral on the of like, you know, is is the drone operator you know a killer, is he not? You know, it's all that sort of stuff. It's quite funny, and it's we've had we've been really lucky that um the drone is voiced by um Matt Lucas, and that's already he's already recorded all his lines, which is great. I mean kind of amazing as a as a little Brit Little Britain fan growing up as well. So we're yeah, sort of hurtling towards the kind of all the hard stuff now, which is all the real world uh production.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Oh nice. That's interesting that you managed to get Matt Lucas before the you'd filmed anything because I know that you know you can usually get them if it's I just need to do a day in the sound booth, these are the lines, and you show them the film and they're like, Oh, I get it, and you managed to get them before. Was that through your BBC work before, or is that um just cold calling him?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

We we're really lucky. So the um the director of the show, Edward Russell, used to I think he used to work with him, he used to work on Doctor Who, and I think he was on that crossover time when when Matt Lucas was one of the kind of companions. Um so he knew him and kind of said similarly to what you just said, really, but without luckily having to shoot anything, which is hey, look, this will be an hour, you know, of your time. Do you want to come and do it? And he said, Yeah, and we did it, which was great. And it's it's it's great to have, I think, you know, it's almost the reverse, really, is great to have him in the can that we can then play out to the actor because a lot of it is just gonna be a guy in the room, which is really difficult stuff to do, especially when it's just a one-hander for a for a large part of it. So yeah, we're really lucky that we can actually plug him in and listen to him.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Very nice. And are you gonna build the uh sort of the the spacecraft yourself? Are you gonna try and do that, or have you got a set that's kind of worked for you already?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Well, it's it's kind of it's sort of you know, near future black mirror settings, so it it's gonna kind of just be kind of a boring-ish office, um, with a little bit of sort of you know, I'm a huge Ridley Scott, um, James Cameron fan, so you know, Blade Runner, aliens, alien, all that. I love the retro futurism look. So I mean, if we if we can, I'd I'd love it to kind of look like the Nostromo, you know, but we'll uh oh that'd be beautiful, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

I'll uh I'll send you I don't you've probably already found one yourself, but I found a YouTube tutorial about how to make your own sci-fi cockpit, but like done really nicely, yeah. And I keep looking at that thinking, like, I might just make one for the garage and just sit in it and be like, Yeah, what could we film in here? It doesn't really matter. Yeah. Uh are you still doing your uh horror film podcast you were doing?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, so yeah, first frights. Um, we've just done the first kind of series, I guess, the first batch. Yeah. Um, and then we're kind of looking to record uh a couple more in the in the new year. But yeah, I'm I'm a huge horror fan. Um, which so the any chance to talk to people about horror films is uh is great. And I'm not like a I'm not like a huge horror snob. I'll I'll go for anything.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I'll go for you know oh I I think being any snob in film is just a waste of time because it's like no no no, you've got to enjoy the schlock and the shit, and you've also got to enjoy the highbrow nonsense, you just gotta enjoy everything.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, no, you do. I I get I get really self-conscious about my um my letterbox reviews, which is the most film-nerdy thing to say it ever, because sometimes I'll go like I'll watch one battle after another and go, you know what? Amazing, four or five stars out of five. I love that. But then also I'll watch Anaconda recently, and I'm like, I really enjoyed that. Like that that's for and then but then now I've seen that people I know have followed me on Letterboxd, I'm like, who am I like becoming kind of performatively like a film bro? Yeah, I'm can I be true to myself?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Because I watch a lot of like shitty B movies from the 80s and 90s, and I'll rate them like three and a half and four out of five on Letterboxd, and then I'll rate like Sinners a two and a half, because I'd be like, it's good, but I just don't think it works. And they're like, Oh, but you'll give Chopping Mall a four, and I'm like, Chopping mall is perfect for what it needs to be. Yeah, like that's like universes, yeah. They're different universes, like, don't get like this, you know. Like, if it's good, it's good. If it's not, it's not. Don't worry about it. So, yeah, try never, never, never worry about other people.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, exactly. Be your authentic self on Xbox, guys.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah, so it was um I'm sure we'll get into this during the questions, but was a horror film something that you were introduced to young, or was that something that you found on your own?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah, no, I think so. I think you know, my my dad was a huge um and my mum to be the massive sort of hammer horror, you know, classic fans. Um, so I've always kind of grown up with it as such. It's one of those things I think where I've you know watched kind of more of the classics and the schlocky ones when I was younger, and then maybe came back to it when I was a little bit older, I think, and kind of you know, right revisited it and went back to kind of you know, the John Carpenters and the kind of classic, more kind of um, you know, the horrors that sort of put up in the kind of cinematic pantheon as as great they're they're horror movies, but they're also they're they're they're great movies in themselves. So and I was always as a kid a huge Stephen King fan. Um so yeah, I've always kind of I've always kind of been uh a big horror fan and then sort of you know I think in the last couple of years kind of revisited it and come back to it and and gone back and maybe done my homework on the classics a bit more, which you know you there's always good to do, you know, your nightmares and elms, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I I think you sometimes have to re-watch those old horrors because sometimes you watch them either too young or in the wrong headspace, and you watch them and you're like, nah, this is dog shit, I don't care. And then you dismiss the whole franchise, and then sometimes you need to go back and be like, Oh no, hold on, hold on, let's try that again. And you'll re-watch it and you're like, Okay, I was right, the first one isn't for me, but actually the second's good because they go in a different direction, or actually I don't really care what they're doing, but I really like what this one character's doing, and that's really good. So I think, yeah, like always sort of going back to an old film and being like, Oh, maybe I need to revisit this.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Maybe it's not shit. I r recently I I watched all of I never I'm sure you have this as well. I I always joke and call it ITV2 plus one films, but like they're the films that you you never quite see all the way through, and you watch bits of it, and usually on a Christmas or like in the summer. I mean, just as a kid, I remember kind of you pick bits of it up, and it's always like you've watched the first bit and you try and go back to the plus one and and and see a bit more of it. And scream was like that for me. I never saw Scream all the way through. And then this summer I watched all of the Screams. It's like these are great, and I and I it's really good, and I came at it kind of backwards. I watched the most recent one on a plane, and I was like, Oh, this is really good. This is like, and at that point, it's like you know, eight movies of meta horror, you know, and then I went back and watched them all, and I was like, This is great, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

It's funny, a friend of mine did the exact same thing, like, and he's what is he? He's 27 or something, and so I and I forget that there's a 10-year age gap between me and my friend. So, um, for the listener, I'm 37, not 17. And um like I'll he was like, I've never seen the scream films. I was like, You've never seen the scream films, what are you on about? They came out when we were kids, and he was like, Nope, 10 years difference. And I was like, Oh, well, they're they're rad, they're so good, give them a go. And just like during one, two, and three, he was like, I can't believe I didn't watch these. And I was like, they're so good, they're so good.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

And it's it's it's great seeing um, and not sound like a complete wanky film, bro, but it is really great seeing all these amazing actors in in such a kind of embryonic state, really, that they go, Oh my god, that's Corney Cox, oh my god, that's you know, all you know, all these different people who went on to have these amazing careers, or some didn't, and that's the interesting thing is the ones that you know didn't quite get yes, but they're such amazing character actors. Um, you know, David is it David Arquette? I can remember, yeah. David Arcad. Yeah, Arcade. Yeah, you know, great, like as Dewey's is like so lovable.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

He's so good, so good so good in that. Um, and and you always think, like, how comes he didn't get more work for this type of role? Like, this is a great role for him, and it never really got anywhere. And you're like, Oh, I guess because he's way into wrestling, maybe that's all he wanted to do in real life.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Great documentary. If you if you have I don't know if you've watched it, but massive massive recommendation. I think it's called I can't remember the top of my head, but it's it's it's him, it's about him and and his love of wrestling, and it's really interesting. Oh nice really kind of it's it's kind of like a by like a biopic. It's his life told through his kind of late stage interest or you know career turned into kind of lucha wrestling. It's mad, it's really it's really good. I'd recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Oh nice, I'd definitely take that out. But uh yeah, okay. And um when you have your because you need to do a little promo for your podcast, do you have people who are in the film horror industry or do you have non-horror industry people and you ask about their horror recommendations?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

It's kind of it's kind of mixed. I I'm for the first um season we we've kind of done people who aren't within the horror industry because I think for me what I I find really interesting is that while it is you know, a lot of the films we talk about, we talk about Sore and Hostel, um the others just as an example, uh Jaws, is that also it's the what I find interesting about you know the the film the first film that scares you is it's not always horror a lot of the time as well. No, you know, I I think I say it on one of the episodes, but it's not a film. But the thing that terrified me for years as a kid was on the Teletubbies, is they're like, I don't know if you remember, there's these there's one episode where they have like a lion and a bear and a tiger, and they've all got like wooden, they've got their own wheels, they're wooden or wheels, and they've got eyes that spin around, and they kind of get closer and closer. It's like if it's like kind of like a cursed video if you look on YouTube, and I was terrified for years and years and years and years, and it's and Katie Owen, um uh who's one of the guests on one of the episodes, she talks about E.T. and how she's absolutely terrified of ET. Terrified just ET. You know, and that's what I love about it, is that you can kind of you know, you get all the you know, I can horror I can nerd out on the horror stuff, but you can ask and go, oh my god, yeah, like E.T.'s getting really weird when you think about it.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Oh, E.T. got me so bad as a kid. Like the bit where you know there's the the ball and he's outside in the light, and it's at the very beginning. That as a kid wrote me off, and then when he's all white and horrible, as a kid, I was like, Oh, I don't like this. I don't know a fan, he's too weird looking, I can't handle it.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

And Edward Scissorhands, yeah, and you always remember, I think they leave they leave a really big mark on you, those those scenes, you know, from films, even if they aren't um necessary horror films that you can all you always, always always um re remember, really. I mean, my one was was I on the pod when I talk about my one is um Aliens, which I loved as a film anyway, but I remember that viscerally going going to the toilet watching at home and needing to go to the toilet. I mean I mean like scared shit less like oh my god. I'm gonna take a minute, yeah, yeah, yeah. Compose myself, then I'll go back. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then yeah, no, so it's it's a real mix, which is great. Um, and to get that I think range of opinions and and and people who aren't horror fans who are scared of horror films, people are horror film, horror fans who you know could you know really can remember that first film that made them fall in love with the genre as well. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

They're they're great things, and I think in a similar vein with this podcast, I like finding out the horror fans' first film because you very rarely are the first you don't choose the first film you went to go see, your mum and dad will take you whatever. So when people like you know Charlie Adlard of The Walking Dead and he's talking about like my fair lady, and you're just like, Oh yeah, I guess. Like you love zombies, he's like, I don't love zombies. It's like, oh yeah, of course you don't. So yeah, it's very interesting when it's that the first film you were made to watch, and then the first film that you were genuinely scared about. I think they're very in that similar, like they've imprinted on you. It doesn't matter what the subject is, sometimes it's just that imprint that really gets you. And I love it.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah, it's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

How did you get into um did you do TV and stuff at uni?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I didn't. I did um I did American literature with creative writing at university.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Um, and then I what I was part there's a program that ran in Wales, it's still going actually. There's a program in Wales called Screen Alliance Wales, where when they moved a lot of the the TV and film production to Wales, sort of in the last well, last 10 years, they were trying to get as many local people, you know, in the area into the into the industry. So I I I was I was on that, which they basically kind of um put you to a different production. So I did the I was the in the very first series of industry, the TV show. So I did uh I was a runner, I wasn't a very good runner, yeah. Um and um I did a couple of the commercials for a bit and then kind of fell into um unscripted documentary and have been there ever since, really. So yeah. Well done.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Well done because it is not an easy gig to stay in. I think it can be it's hard, yeah. It's all destroying.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

It's hard. I I you know my my background is is is is development, and uh the the good thing about development is that you are usually in post for a while because you're you're selling um and you're pitching and you're um or developing uh ideas. So you you kind of you're usually the contracts are slightly longer and you can kind of find your feet a bit more um instead of kind of going from job to job to job. So yeah, so and then only recently in the last couple of years, I've tried just to add some more strings to my bone because it you know it's good to go out the office to kind of produce more and actually get on location and and you know learn a bit more and uh have the fun, the the joy of um uh dealing with every all the different uh emotions and egos that come with the production. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I I do love it when you meet someone who's got a very big ego on set and you're just like, oh, this is gonna be a fun job trying to manage you.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah, yeah. Pre-order the bottle of wine for myself now.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I also love it when you get when you know who that person is and you also know who your chill people are, and it's like, oh, I know I can just leave you guys to get on with. And you're like, I'm gonna hang out with you guys whenever I can. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

You you this is gonna be my decompression room. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

You uh talk about your love for horror films, and uh you have of course made a horror film yourself. Is it just the one or have you made multiples?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Uh I've made one horror short. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I'd like to go back, I'd like to go back and and do more, but yeah, one at the moment. Which was a which was a horror comedy, so it's not it's not a not pure horror even.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I'm a pretender I liked it. It's a safe bet, you know. Like if you're not scared, it was funny. And if you were if you didn't laugh, well it's a horror.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah, split the genre exactly, is spread spread betting with film, it's always a good way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Exactly. Best way to do it. Yeah. Um, but you know, obviously I I if your parents showed you a horror film for the first film you went to the cinema, that's bad parenting. But uh, what was the first film you saw at the cinema?

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Well, I'm gonna completely disappoint you. The f I the first one I I I remember vividly, and this is there's a couple uh around about the time, but the one I I I really remember was uh Atlantis The Lost World, which is a which is a Disney film The Matt Damon. No, no, it's it's a it's an animated Disney film that came out in 2001. Um and I know that what I thought Matt Damon was a voice in that, was he not? Uh it's um oh my god, what's his name? Marty McFly. I can't remember his name. Michael J. Fox. Michael J. Fox is the product, uh Myla Thatch. And then maybe I can't remember who the maybe this is a great voice cast, but I remember it vividly. I loved it. It was, you know, it was that kind of boom time of Disney releasing all these kind of not traditional um sort of Disney story animations. It was like that. There was Treasure Planet, which I was obsessed with, Bugs Life, all these great. Sort of it was kind of like it was kind of in like kind of like a free-flow jazz era for Disney, like let's just try some new stuff that isn't you know public domain uh every day else.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Can we just remake anything we've made before? Can we just do that again?

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah, can we be like no, come on, it's uh yeah. Do something new, fresh. Yeah, come on, let's just do it. Let's get Michael J. Fox as a nudie uh paleontologist or whatever he is, and you know, send him to the bottom of the ocean. Great. I was sort of upset, I was that that was peak. I was I would have been yeah, I'm like four or five then, and it was like, okay, there's there are giant like crab creatures, you know what I mean? It was like everything one, it's like this is cool, uh, everything is huge, and there's huge mechanical things, there's giant monsters, this is great. You know, any subtext is completely over my head, but visually that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Well, I I remember that film coming out, and my brother being really excited to see it, and I I I don't know why, but to me, I remember it being the first film where I heard from reviews it wasn't very good, and I was like, I don't want to watch it then. And it came out what, like 2001? It didn't come out, yeah. Yeah, so I was what 10, 11, it was 13, right? At 13, I'm like, well, if the reviews are saying it's bad, I'm not gonna watch it.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Usually I go it's like but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, that sounds right on my street, but if Mark Commodes says it's yeah, I can't watch it. And it's just like I what's weird is that I still haven't seen it because my brain as a 13-year-old was like, no, no, no. The reviews are bad.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

The reviews are bad. This is this is yeah, we're never gonna recover from this. Weirdly, there is a sequel which was DD, which is you know, not as good. But I love it. It's got a real special place in my heart because I I just remember uh you know, falling in love with it and and really and getting on on VHS and just watching it and watching it and watching. Same with like all those films that came out, Bugs Life. I loved Bugs Life and just watched it over.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, Bugs Life was a big one for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah, Bugs Life's got that, kind of recently has been kind of reappraised as like incredibly quite Marxist, very like very sort of like how you slip in sort of like political discourse into like a three-year-old spell.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

And I and I also like that like were you a Bugs Life or an Ants guy? And it's like well, I'm Bugs Life guy, and I'm pleased I was because I don't want to like anything as Woody Allen fans, you know. Yeah, like oh good, oh good, I was the right one.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, yeah. And this is terrifying. There's a horrific. I don't know if you remember watching, there's a horrific scene where they like go to like attack the termites or something. Um, and the termites these like huge giant things that shoot acid out of their heads, and there's like people being melted. And I was like, this is like quite quite horrendous. This is pretty this is pretty it's too much.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Far too much for a kid. I want nice who ordered the poo-poo platter, you know. I want I want that stuff, yeah. That's good stuff. So with Atlantis, was there anything about it? Was there any sort of I you said you were four or five when you went to see it, so I guess you know it's not uh tugging on your parents' sleeve and being like, I want to go see this. But what was it, do you reckon, about that film that stuck with you?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

I think it was the scale of it. I think you know, I'm I'm also a huge uh sci-fi fan, and I think it was I think it was that, I think it was the scale of it, I think it was the sort of the the imagination of it to an extent for me is is it's all those it's a very kind of if you know you look go back and look at it, it's a very kind of sci-fi film, it's very big, it's very it's it's quite you know like Spielbergian in that way. It's it's a big adventure, they go on a kind of a quest, um, they go to this hidden world, they discover all these cool creatures. It's it's you know, it's it's yeah, it's kind of like red meat, right? You know, kind of as as as if everything you could have wanted. And as I said, as well, I had like a giant mechanical like lobster creature that attacked, you know. The I had this whole thing for for years. My parents used to take the mick out of me, is that I um I I I always used to love all of um all the villains. That was my big thing. Like it's like I was obsessed with them, and like kind of that we'll come on to it later, I'm sure, but but but you know, one of the best things I love was like when there was a villain in a film, and then usually like the secondary villain, and then by the time like the third act, they like turn good. So they were cool, they weren't kind of a loser, they were cool, and they actually then get to have the kind of moral, moral kind of high ground in the end, so it was okay to like them. I mean, there's a couple of characters in in Atlantis who were like, Oh, they they they betray Milo, I think, at one point, and they come good in the end. I was like, Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, that's alright then. I knew to like them, they were okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, I was right, I was right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Um, you mentioned earlier that you watched this over and over. Is this was there other films? Like, what other films did you watch over and over again as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Um again, this is quite funny to talk about given the films that like I'd like to make and and light making and stuff I watch now. Is uh Chiddy Chiddy Bang Bang was the film I watched um probably into oblivion, I would say. I I was obsessed with that film.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I could wore the tape out.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah, yeah, literally. I remember you know, just whizzing that uh VHS. Weirdly, my sister then was obsessed with another sort of classic being Mary Poppins, and and the sort of joke joke in the family is that she you know literally rewang the tape so many times, like burnt the tape. Yeah, and that's getting and then and that was interesting is that at that point like DVDs were coming in, so she got a DVD. It's like she can never she can watch this as many times as she wants. This is amazing, she'll never ruin this. Exactly, yeah. And um, but yes, I I I loved J Bam, I thought it was great. You know, it's a musical, which I guess is one of those things that when I watched it, in the same way where I think at that age Loved Atlantis is like a big adventure sort of film, and it's got Dick Van Dyke, and they go to a foreign country, and and there's the this great villain in the in the child catcher, and it's really beautifully imagined. It's you know, it's so kind of you know, the set design and the the visuals are really kind of amazing. It's a bit like you know, of that time of like Willie Wonker as well, the original. It's it's so lush and it's so um in your face, but not in a kind of garage where it's like, wow, this is it's a bit kind of like I guess like where Zanderson is now, right? It's license to go out there and be big and be bold and kind of be like, Yeah, it's cool, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

It's just what technicolor should be, if that makes sense. It's that like you're giving me everything, every the saturation is up, the fucking flavours are all the way up, and I'm loving everything. You're not over salting, you're just overdoing everything to the point where it's like, oh, well, nothing's too loud, but everything's loud. Yeah, yeah. And it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

You could tell they were like, Oh, finally we can do it in colour, like let's go.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Yeah, then let's fucking use the colours. What other colours we got? Throw them in.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah, I mean, you know, look at all those. Again, it also has fantastic set pieces. You've got um the the bit where he goes to the uh the candy, uh there's the the kind of sweet factory, you know, that's great with the two suites. You've got the stuff at the kind of I think it's like a circus or something, or like a kind of country fair. Um, you've got the big banquet scene in the in the sort of the castle towards the end. It's all just yeah, it's it's great, it's just really sumptuous. You can just kind of again. I just loved watching it. And I think it's one of those things. I don't know if you have it, I have it now with certain films that I re-watch a lot where you have watched it so many times that you're like you're kind of happy, or you you you have a comfort of knowing what comes next. You're like, okay, oh, we're on to this. I have a blade, I've watched Blade Runner 2049 probably about 25 times, right? And I could probably just sit back and and just watch it in my head to an extent. Yeah, it's like oh great No, I know what you mean. I know where we are now. Oh great, it's this part. I love this part.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh Jaws, Jurassic Park, and uh Evil Dead. Yeah. Like I can just put those on and be like, okay, okay, we're in. We're we're safe. We're in. And that's it. I don't gotta worry about it anymore. We're good to go. Um have I got my yeah, put it down here. You're a blade runner fan.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

That's not the gun, is it? So cool!

SPEAKER_00 30:41

It was annoyingly, it it's like it's resin, then it's broken. But this all like it all the loading mechanism works and everything like that. And I love it.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

You've got that and the pulse rifle. That's mad.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Like oh, and I also got uh the 2020 2012 Dread.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Oh give her sick. I love that film.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

And then bear with me. There's another one. The Samaritan.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Oh, wow. Wow. Huge that do the bullets come out.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Cool. That's so cool. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

So yeah, uh, I'm a big prop guy.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah, you're like you're absolutely like locked and loaded for kind of the cinematic weapons. I'm trying to think what else.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Oh, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah, what else? What else would you need? I'm trying to think if there's anything. Um what else would I think? It's kind of a oh I mean yeah, lightsaber.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah, lightsaber.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Maybe like Conan's sword would be quite cool.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I that's a good point. I don't have Conan's sword. I do have the master sword from Zelda.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

That's quite cool.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

But it used to be uh where this bookcase is, this one here, used to hang on the wall. And uh during meetings when I was when I used to work a corporate job, I had to decide do I want to be seen with a sword behind me or my guitar behind me? Because both both send a message. Yeah, different message. But what but what message, you know? So in the end I thought, just get rid of it, just have a wall of DVDs. Let them know.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So yeah, put that down somewhere now, bloody yeah. Um excellent. Uh it's funny you were saying about the musical thing as well, because I remember as a kid being really like I didn't want to if if uh if my mum ever suggested a musical, I would always poo-poo it. I'd be like, I don't want to watch a musical. But then the amount of films I watched as a kid that I loved that were musicals, but I but they weren't pitched as musicals, so I was like, No, no. Like, don't get me wrong, Little Mermaid, that's fine. Aladdin, that's fine. But don't you dare show me Singin in the Rain. Yeah. And it's like, why? What there's no difference between these films. And then as an adult watching something like Sing in the Rain and being like, I was an idiot. This this is the case.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Yeah, this is kind of perfect cinema, isn't it? Yeah, for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Perfect cinema, yeah. Like to the point where I have Singing in the Rain on 8 mil film, like the whole film, and it's just like I I love it. Yeah, but anyway. Um okay, interesting, interesting. What was the first uh 18-rated film you saw, and how old were you?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Ooh, I so it is Starship Troopers, 1997, Paul Behoven. Um I would have been this is quite a good story. I was about I think about 10 or 11. And what it was is I was um, I remember I had a book, my nan got me a book the the making of Starship Troopers, a book from the library, because like I am a huge Star Wars fan, and she just kind of went, Oh, Starship, Space, Battle, and I I fell in love with it. I was like, This is amazing, giant bugs, this is great, it's blood, there's gore, you know, it's everything kind of like an 11-year-old boy would think is amazing. I remember saying to my parents, I was like, I really want to watch this film, watched it, um, loved it, and I was like, Oh, I my birthday was coming up, and I was like, Can I watch the film again with all my friends? And they were like, Oh, it's 18. And it was like, Okay, yeah. The interesting thing was, uh if you haven't seen the film, uh, you know, if people haven't seen the film, is that there's yes, there's a load of kind of very graphic violence and a lot of kind of like alien bugs exploding everywhere and people being brains getting sucked out of heads like that. There is also a like a sustained section of nudity, um, a couple of very sustained nudity. So the compromise was you can watch the film again. This dates it, it was on VHS, and it was you can watch the film, but um uh my dad had to come in and and fast forward all of the nudity. So it was like, everyone look look away. We fast forward the two nudity scenes, and it was like Don't you enjoy diz.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

All right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

It was you can enjoy you can enjoy the the kind of want on a pattern of violence that is throughout this film, but you know, we have to be we have to draw the line and be responsible somewhere. So that was the first the the first kind of R-rated film I watched, um, and sort of traumatizing a bunch of other 11-year-olds because I was like, Do you not think this is amazing?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, this is good stuff. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

And similarly, you know, that is a film I've watched. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched that film. I love that film.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

It's so good. And that's a film as well, when it's on, it's staying on.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Yeah, and it's and it's it's really I think it's never really had the the proper, I think, like appraisal it should have it should have had because it's it's really it's really layered and it's very clever and very smart. Um, you know, and I I think you can go you go back to it at different ages and you watch it when you know I watch it in 11. It's like this is amazing. This is you know, the guys are blowing up giant bugs and having a great time, and oh, there's a bit of violence, this is super cool, and then you go, okay, this is actually kind of an allegory on you know the sort of banality of fascism. This is kind of cool, and and you can revisit it and get um something from it each time. It's a shame it didn't do very well at the time. Yeah, um, and I went to see the 20th anniversary, would it be 20th, 20th anniversary screening? Um, I was in I was in Los Angeles at the time, and I was like, I've I've got to go to go and see it. And you know what, I think it was Casper Van Deen, Paul Behoven was there. Um god Denise, I can't think of his surname now. Richards. Richards was there um as a QA, and they were they were talking about it, and they were saying, like, the problem was I think it went out in the US as a X-rated, maybe, or that it was it was they made a mistake and they said you know that they should have cut it, cut some stuff down and put out as like uh you know that the kids could go, teenage go and see it. But they were saying that there's a really funny thing that was happening. I think it was another film, maybe like Inspector Gadget, was on at the same time. And they said if you look at all the multiplexes where both of them were playing, they said there was like anecdotal reports of huge spikes in like Inspector Gadget sales, and they think buying tickets for one film, and they I think it's like an LA Times reporter with seeing all these kids going to watch Sasha Juba screen. Paul Boom was kind of saying, like, what if you add like all of the ticket sales to this other film and put it in? Yeah, it's actually like did quite well, but and I think the sad thing about it is it kind of you know, and I I watched them and I still love them to this then, it it kind of had several sequels to kind of the kind of did worse and worse and became more B movie and more B movie to the point of yeah, like okay, now there's an animated film and now there's a so-and-so, and it's like ugh, you know, and it's sad you know Casper, you know, Casper Van Dean's grey, and and he still very much you know loves that film and and and loves the the fan base is there for it, but yeah, it's a shame because you go from such an amazing massive like Hollywood um production to something to a B-movie film within like a sequel, which is like it's just kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

It is bonkers, and I I love that the original book is really pro, it's very conservative and it's pro-military, and the fact that they they make this film and they like you said they point out the banality of war and they really take the piss out of it, but not in such a way that you can still watch it and think it's pro something. If you want, you can. You can also watch it and realize that it's Denise Richards who uh triggered the attack on New Brazil.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Oh, yeah, with the with the with the meteor, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Yeah, if she didn't go a different route, they wouldn't have had that, which would have pushed it off and then made it go in thing, which then caused the attack. If she hadn't done that, there wouldn't have been the film. But hey.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

It's a Carmen I banner's truth is how you get in there.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Um also like for uh Warhammer 40,000 fans, that's the closest like anyone's ever got to a proper 40k film. Yeah because between that and Event Horizon, they're just like, well, there's Warhammer as a film, so it still has like such a big appeal to such a wide audience, but you're right, it is still seen as this like oh it's not very good, is it? It's like no, no, no, no, it's excellent, it's wonderful. The people who love it love it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

And I and I hate I hate I hate that when it's thrown around because you know I think you can call things campy almost as a term of endearment, right? Like Adam West, Batman is Campy, yeah, it's time and and it's sort of uh a kind of way of being affectionate towards it. But I I think yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? Because I think you know, when you call something, and it is a bit like they're it's very melodramatic. I mean the entire cast is all ex kind of um uh you know uh daytime TV stars, yeah. And and and they are directed in and in a certain way and and they they they do give good performances, but I think you know, calling it I hate it when you know it gets a misnomer on that because I think it's a lot more clever than people give it, um, give it credit for.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

And the performances are actually a lot more like uh they're not, but they are a lot more nuanced than they they need to be. Yeah, like they don't need that that's the thing, you're right. It is considered very campy, and it is sort of, you know, people are like, oh, they're hamming it up, and it's like they are hamming it up, but only in the right points, they're not hamming it up in the quiet moments, which says that they're doing this intentionally, and if they're doing it intentionally, watch why are they doing this intentionally? What are they telling us in that point? It's so good. Another one I'm gonna have to rewatch.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah, and and comes with like again a lot of those 80s films, you know, like Predator or Alien or kind of Commander, just just like a laundry list of amazing quotes from from Starship. Oh, yeah, you know, that are still meme. I mean, it's such it's like a uh massively memed film, even to this day. It's great, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Uh or one of the group chats I'm on, it's a 40k group chat. Twice, three times a year, someone will just put a screenshot, like watching it. Like watching it, and it's like, oh yeah, you're right, we should go play soon, we should play against Tyran soon, we should go do that. It's just like you just know straight away. You gotta get those bugs. Um so I mean that's a that is a grown-up film, but what was the first film that you watched that you considered grown up?

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Ooh, the first film that I considered grown up. Um I'd probably say it was uh Brian De Palmer's The Untouchables. Have you seen that?

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Oh nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yeah, Kevin Costner, um Sean Connery and uh I think Robert De Niro as uh Al Pacino.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Al Capone.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Al Capone, I'll give it a Capone. Um yeah, I remember watching that and being like, oh, this is like uh this is a grown-up movie. There's no giant bugs in this. This is terrible.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

No, I believe they got shotguns, but they got no bugs. What's going on?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

What's going on? There's no nudity, yeah. Um I yeah, I remember watching that it was, I think, because it's it's held up as this as one of the great kind of noir gangster films, I guess, or kind of um true crime films uh of the 20th century is yeah, I I I I loved it. I remember it was and it felt it's a very sit maybe a stupid thing to say, but it felt like okay, I I have to engage with this. Um this is you know, I really have to sit down and and watch it and not just sort of sit back and watch spectacle. And maybe that's that kind of change that you that you get when you go from maybe the more kind of like Lucas Spielberg view of filmmaking, more films that you watch, and you go, you know, you know, you it's not 10 minutes action, 10 minutes talking, 10 minute actions, 10 minutes talking. It's it's it's a bit more nuanced than that. Um, but it's got some, you know, I'd the the kind of very famous scene of they're having that shootout. I think it's Grand Central Station having a shootout in, and there's like a buggy in the middle of this the buggy comes down the stairs, ah, it's amazing. And it's and it's not it's a shootout, but it's not kind of super stylized, it's quite realist, and it's yeah, I I think it uh it's great, and it's got you know Kevin Carson's great in it, Sean Connery's okay in it.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

He's he's fine, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Yeah, he's like gets they get drunk. I think it doesn't seem when they get drunk or something, and then he I think it's sort of it's sort of technically Connery's career, isn't it? I think just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

It's uh it's interesting. There's a uh if you watch anyone who drinks alcohol Of the good guys dies.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Interesting. Yeah, it's that kind of weird moralistic tale on the street.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

It's meant to be like because Costner doesn't. He's about prohibition and he agrees with it, so he doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Ah, of course, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Whereas everyone else who's like, yeah, it's prohibition, but what's wrong with a bit of this? Even to the point where there's the one guy who's like, he's quite he's the in Moonrise Kingdom, he plays the narrator. Oh. Got the glasses. He was also in Seinfeld as the head of NBC.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

But in uh The Untouchables, there's a bit of a shootout, and uh one of the whiskey barrels gets shot, and he's kind of celebrating, and he kind of just sticks his head under as a joke and takes a drink, and that's the only time he takes a drink, but spoilers, he gets shot.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Interesting. That's quite that's pretty that's pretty hardcore from Brian De Palmer there, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 44:55

It is. Considering Palmer is quite like I don't know, he's a political man, but he's not he I would have considered him on the on the right side of politics.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Hmm. Yeah, it it's interesting, isn't it? It's uh maybe it's a sort of kind of like I don't know, intertextuality of it, you know, that that you know that they uh that that Costner is the Costner's character is the you know, Elliot Nass is the only kind of true good guy, you know, he's the kind of moral center. There's also I I remember Connery having like a really like egregious death where they like shoot him like a million times with his and it's like a bit where I remember watching being like because I really I love their kind of little relationship they have, um him as a kind of the old school beat cop, and and he gets shot the first time like okay, I've seen enough films, he's been shot a little bit, he's gonna be okay. He's gonna be okay, and then and then he gets like hosed with a Thompson about three times.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yeah, you're like, I don't know if James Bond's gonna live through this.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Yeah, yeah. He's gonna walk this one off. Um, but he it's really is like again, it's like it is Brian De Palmer obviously can does great action, but it's not kind of like action for the sake of it's like it's horrible, it's a really horrible moment.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

What you can get it's it's definitely telling you something within the action. The action isn't you know just for the sake of it, it's kind of like no no no, look who's getting killed, look who's being abused in this situation, and realize why. He's a very good filmmaker though.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

No, definitely. So, yeah, that would that was the film I think that I yeah, I feel like I had to turn my brain on for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

And was that introduced to you? Was it a self-discovery? Was it uh how how did you come across that film?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah, that was I think that was one I watched with my dad. I feel like it was one of those ones he's you know, he's a big big film guy, and and I think that that was one same with the Rocky films, it was like almost sort of a like you need to watch this one. You know what I mean? Like it's like you watch the you watch Rocky, you watch Untouchables, maybe the Godfather is is within those kind of that pantheon of films that you sort of get your background education, you know, it's almost like you know, just just do it just in case, like you know, someone brings it up as a reference.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

You don't want to get caught short not knowing what the godfather is. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

That's the worst thing when you when you know you someone does a film reference and you you've kind of seen it and you kind of look like stretch, but you're like, oh yeah, and like oh yeah, because like in this one scene, you're like, oh fuck, I understood the first. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

I'm aware of the film, let's not go any further.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Yeah, well I watched some interviews about it. Does that count? Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 47:32

I read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Come on, it's good enough.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah, yeah. Or someone says that, says a film, and you quickly like just in case they they kind of call on you to give your opinion, like, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

It's now that's why I always go to letterbox, and I'm like, I think I've seen it. Let me see if I've logged it and then check, and I'm like, right, I haven't seen it, but let's quickly read it so I know what I'm on about because I might know of the story but not seen it, and then I've heard of it, but I've never seen it, which seems to be that should be written on my fucking tombstone. Um so yeah, like it there's I don't I hate getting caught short having not seen a film which is bonkers because there's thousands of you feel bad, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Or is it especially when it's one of the kind of you know classics, I think. Yeah, I I've never I'll hold my hand up and say I've never properly watched The Godfather the whole way through.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Um and I'm gonna give you a controversial opinion early. You don't gotta.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

You think you're not Godfather fan?

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Uh I'm not a Godfather fan. Okay. I I think it's uh it's fine, it's uh Goodfellas is a better if you want to go for that um if you want to go for a gangster film in the mob type thing, I think Goodfellas is a more fun, enjoyable film that gives you that. If you want to go for this generational um generational sort of film about the mob, the Gangs of Wassipur, which is an Indian film, yeah, by far, like it's it's two parts and it's about six hours long, but by far that's a much better film that shows this sort of the effects on gangs and family from one guy all the way to the end. And of course that film has been you know influenced by The Godfather, yeah. But I think it's a better film, okay more enjoyable, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

But is is that yeah, I remember my my sort of entry point into it was like being on a plane, I think it was like a 12-hour flight or something, or an eight-hour flight, and the guy directly in front of me I could see his screen and he watched all of them.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

I think almost as a sort of like I have eight hours if I watch all of the amount of friends that are like, Well, I've got a 12-hour flight, might as well watch all of the Lord of the Rings again.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

And I'm like that's a big one. That's a classic, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Watch watch something else you've not seen. They're like, nope.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Nope. Yeah, that's a schlag, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 49:57

I wouldn't. I I don't think I could I try uh my partner went away for a weekend, I say recently, this is probably ages ago, and I thought to myself, I'm gonna watch all the extended cuts of the Lord of the Rings. If I got halfway through the first one before I was like, How much more fucking walking are they gonna do? Let's do something else.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

And I was like, I'm gonna turn this off, I'm gonna watch something else.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

It's like I've tried to watch, I've tried to watch, try to read the first Fellowship of the Rings.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Uh how far have you got?

SPEAKER_01 50:29

I gave up. It was like they're good. They're still talking about there's like and then they had food again, and I'm gonna describe in in excruciating detail all of the food they ate.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

So I skipped all the songs. Yeah, genuinely. I skipped all the songs. I was like, there's songs in this. Nah, fuck that. Yeah, got all through all that. Then I was like, who's this Tom Bombadrill? And why am I spending so much fucking time with him? But people love them and then they got people. I don't understand it. I got past the prancing pony. I don't even think I got like fully past the prancing pony before I was like, I'm done. We're we're we're halfway through this book, and you're still just walking in the shire for fuck's sake. Like, let's speed it up. Come on, Joe. And I said this to a friend, and they were just like, Oh, you were you were nowhere near anything happening. If that's where you got bored, you you were done. And I was like, I I gave up.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

I was like, I think it's difficult because you watch the film, you're like, aren't they supposed to see the Nazgals now? And they just haven't.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Yeah. Stop singing, man. Hurry the fuck. Also, are you in a hurry or not? Because it doesn't feel like you're in a hurry.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Yeah. Epic in scale, but not in sort of there's no sort of impetus to go any faster, is there?

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Also, I am a sci-fi guy, not a fantasy guy. So to me, I would rather um having said that, I never got through the first book of Dune, but I would rather do Dune and in that sci-fi, like Austin's got card books, I'd rather read those or um like maybe not Asimov. Anyway, yeah, I would sooner go sci-fi than I would fantasy. So when I'm reading High Fantasy and it's all the quilliquath of the Mrothoth, I'm just like, uh no no no no no. Tell me about ray guns and aliens.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Yeah, where's the giant planet killing battle station?

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Yeah, where's that? Come on. That one. Uh so what film holds a special place in your heart?

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Well, yeah, talking about sci-fi and um and giant planet killing battle stations, uh, it's it's Return of the Jedi is is probably gun to the head. Favourite film of all time is Return of the Jedi. Um, and I know for anyone says it's not the best Star Wars film, and Burn Strikes Back is better.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

I know that for anyone says that's time to go fuck themselves. Yeah, I think you enjoy whatever you want to enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

I think it's the best, and and again, I I think I fell in love with it at the right age of being like seven and being like, this is amazing. Again, I wasn't like ewoks are cool, but I also wasn't like ewoks are crap. I was like, this is sort of you know the the perfect entry point. Um, and yeah, I I I loved that film, I still love that film. I think for all it's like again, you can kind of come back to it, you know, when you're older and go, actually, on balance is not a great film. Um, but it it's great, it's got like it's just kind of greatest hits of the of the trilogy, right? And um and it's got the I was a I still am huge Darth Vader fan. So for me, I was like, this is great. I guess I guess see what Darth Vader finally looks like, and he's actually a good guy.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

He does back again with you with the villain that turns out good.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

I was my I was like Darth Vader's the best because he's even though he's bad, but actually he does turn to be good in the end, so it's it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Do you ever watch the uh you can do the six, well it's five, you don't watch Phantom Menace, but you can do the machete cut?

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Yes, you go you go New Hope, strike Empire, and then you go one, two, one uh two, three, and then return. I did uh recent I said yeah, last couple of years I did that, and it it it kind of saves them all a bit, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 54:20

I think Yeah, it's it's the only way I would watch them now.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Yeah, it and it it gives them it it allows you to to lean on sort of the the strengths of the of those films and and kind of forgive uh the the weaknesses because it's like you know I I the prequels get a lot of of shtick, but probably similar to like they were they were my Star Wars films, right? They were the ones that came out when I was young and and I loved them. Same. Um and you again you sort of reappraise them later on, and I think I think also the Star Wars fandom is so kind of like horribly toxic. The like, you don't know this, you like this, what you're not allowed to like this, you have to like that, and it's very kind of prescriptive in that way.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

And I think I hate it. Yeah, they it it's the fandom that's put me off the films, which is a really shame because I loved them. My parents and all my family, like that was the thing. I my mum sewed me a Jedi robe, I play I get broomsticks and with electrical tape, and then they'd be lightsabers. I did all of that now. When people are like, Have you seen the new? I'm like, I won't, I won't, I can't, because I I don't want it I don't want to watch something and go, Oh, that was pretty good, and then have my friends who are really toxic in their opinions about certain things, to then be like, Oh, I hate it because of this reason, and you're like Yeah, it's hard to just enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

It's become such a polarizing a polarising kind of um fandom, I guess, if you will, like that you can't really have a like a moderate opinion on it's very like uh extremist opinions on that one.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

It's either love or hate, and it's like what if what about indifferent?

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Yeah, I actually really like solo, I enjoyed that as a film. I I'll be honest with you, like I thought it was a really good, like uh enjoyable kind of fun. I think I think a lot of what happened with that was it came out after The Last Jedi, and so many people hated Last Jedi across sort of spectrum of fans, is that anything that came out afterwards was like, Yeah, no, this is bad, you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Because it's like I like you know I it's it's as well as that everyone was like, uh we've got three young Han Solo films, they're called Star Wars, and you're like, Oh, alright, chill out. That no one no one's ruining your childhood, like you keep telling us. They're just making a film, you don't gotta watch it. It's as simple as that. No, you don't watch it.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

You you you have it, and I get I get it means like stuff to people. Like I I had it recently with you know growing up, you know, as a kid, I was a huge Halo fan. Like I played Halo on you know on Xbox, like the first first time I got Xbox 360, I was like, oh my god, this is amazing! Playing at a friend's house or whatever. I have to have one so I can play Halo. Um and I remember I for you you know read books, you know, did all the extra media stuff, and then I was like, oh my god, they're doing a series, and then you and it's alright, and it's fine, and it's hard because then you know I remember a friend watched it who had zero investment in any of the kind of the story, and like I really enjoyed it. And I'm like, Yeah, you are allowed to like but but I I I was that I was the monster. I was like, No, yeah, you gotta enjoy it, it's not more accurate.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

I will say they did make a point of only hiring writers who had never played the game.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

Yeah, there was I and I read something like it went through something like 260 script script drafts or something, was it? Uh and it been in I mean the the the the thing it should have been is the Neil Blom camp should have you seen the Neil Blom camp kind of he did the kind of the advert for Halo 3? That was amazing. I was like, just give him a film. Same with the alien films, give him give him a like come on, give him an alien film. He wants to do it.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Give him something, give him something that he can actually do. Don't just throw him right in that yeah, just let him in just let him have a good time. We'll all enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Exactly. Yeah, I felt a bit like that with the creator. I was like, I really um Gareth uh Gareth Edwards, I I really wanted to love that film as similar as well.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Oh, I did. Did you like did you did you like it? I really liked the creator, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

I I also re I like John David Washington, so I'm kind of like I was already sold. And then it was like but yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

I think it is it's a good film. I think yeah, I think it as a as a sci-fi fan, it does, it does deliver. I think I just maybe didn't love it as much as I wanted to love it, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

So I kind of ignored it when it first came out. I was like, I don't know what it is, I don't really care, I'm off. And then um a friend got it on 4K, and he was like, Do you want to come over and watch it? And I was like, Yeah, cool, and he's got a good cinema setup at home, so I saw it as good as it could be, and I was just like, This is excellent, this is exactly what it needs to be. This is a sci-fi film that wasn't reliant on an on an established franchise, yeah. It's different in its in its way, it cre it created technology but in a very mundane, you know, yeah, people have got bionic limbs, but they're still just hoofing shit out of the river, you know, and it's like, oh yeah, it's nice, normal, but with the added benefit of this technology. And I was like, Oh, I like this. I like this a lot. It is I think it had the same vibe that like Elysium had for me, where it was like, Oh, it's shit. It's still shit, but it's the the future. Great.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like um yeah, grounded sci-fi, isn't it? Where it's it's a bit it's that same lineage as as kind of alien, right? It's sort of yeah sci-fi, but it's a bit shit and a bit gritty and a bit roachy, and and kind of bang, you know, it's it's it's banged round a bit. It's not kind of like techno futurism where everyone's having a great dad said that about alien.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

When I first asked him when I was young and hadn't seen it, I was like, What's this alien film? And it's like, oh, it's good because it's the first time you've ever seen a spaceship that's shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

And I was like, Oh, sick.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

That sounds great. It's not it's not Cloud City, is it? I mean, you know and I love Style. No, and that's what's great about it. It's it's very relatable, isn't it? Because everyone for you know, everyone forgets that, isn't it? The kind of they're the guys in the first alien film are just truckers, they're like, you know, hauling.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

They are you and I, you know, they're or not you and I. They're they're sorry, they're real workers.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

They're not yeah, yeah, they're real people, yeah, yeah, yeah. Artifacts creatives, they got they got they got it and they're thinking else.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

They got calluses, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

But um, yeah, it's that is that kind of yeah, I know what's the word for it, it's just a bit more knocked about and lived in.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Lived in, that's the word lived in's good, yeah. Yeah, nice. Um, so we we skirted with the with Star Wars and talking about that stuff, but what is your controversial opinion on a famous film?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

Ooh, um I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I think uh Pulp Fiction is only good for one watch, if I'm honest with you. But I think that's I'm testing them always here. I think I think it's without being too uh heavy-handed on the subject, I think Pulp Fiction is sort of a thing that everybody who like likes likes film or gets into film or is a bit of a film nerd has to go through. They have to watch it at like 13 to 16, think it's the best film in the world, yes, and then never watch it ever again. I think is and go and go through that. And I think Tarantine is amazing. And don't I I think it is, you know, when it came out it was very revolutionary, um, and you know, it it was a real ball take and shot in the arm, I think, for for filmmaking. But I I've never rewatched that film ever. I I think I tried to and it's it's like okay. It's fine, it's fine, it's okay, and it's not it's sort of they're just I don't know. I uh I think it's I think it's sort of it's almost become like Pasticia meme now of like oh yeah, like uh kind of film bro, like have you not seen Pulp Fiction sort of thing? Yeah, but I yeah, I I I I find it with a lot of and I I do love Tarantino, I found it a bit with Hateful Eight as well, is that it was like I watched it and I was like that was a bit boring at points. I don't know if I can watch that again, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

It's you're in uh fine company for this opinion because I I don't know what it is about Tarantino. I didn't like any of his films until I watched Deathproof.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

And then I loved Deathproof when it first came out. I watched it again yesterday or the day before, and the dialogue was so painful. I was like, oh, you're just so desperate to be cool that you're ruining your film by trying to be cool. And it is the same critique I had with Pulp Fiction, that it was it's like in 1993, 1994, whatever, when it first came out, no one had seen it before. And when I say it, I mean that style of filmmaking, it's done really well. I understand the hype, but I'm surprised people still refer to it as being as good as it is, because it's not that good. Like, I and I is who who the fuck am I to say that? Obviously, like I'm I'm I'm not an award-winning filmmaker. Well, I am an award-winning filmmaker, but not like Tarantino. And it feels very sort of like I always found that Pulp Fiction was great, and this comes off as real film brewery. If you're not a film fan, Pulp Fiction's great. You know? Interesting, yeah. If you don't if you don't know what he's referencing, Jackie Brown is great. But if you've watched any black exploitation films, it's shit. And it's the same with like uh Reservoir Dogs. If you've watched Hong Kong cinema from the 90s and 80s, Reservoir Dogs is a bit bad, it's fine, it's okay. But if you've watched all of those other like Chayanne Fat films and they're fucking wonderful, then they don't quite sit as well. And I feel like it's the same, like across all of his films. If you've never seen what he's referencing, these are the best things to watch. If you haven't got time to go back and re-watch all the shitty film noirs and find all your favourite parts, just go watch pop fiction. Just go watch Django Unchained if you haven't got time to go watch all the great like Westerns.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:52

But if you have seen those films, I don't know why we talk about those films, because I'm like, yeah, they're fine. Like they're they're fine. Like I wouldn't watch it again. I'd sooner go watch all of the war films I like than go watch Inglorious Bastards. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

Sure. And I think but I think it's one of those things when when you hit like you hit a Tarantino sort of scene that you as you say, like if you if you haven't seen that sort of film before, it's it's very refreshing, and then you go, oh great, I'll the one that I you know, I I'd say for me personally out of the Tarantino films, the one I recently rewatched um both The Kill Bills, and I do that is one I would re-watch. I like I I think that's kind of has a bit more spectacle to it, and it's sort of it's a lot I I I watched the the second part recently and I thought it was a lot more emotionally considered than the first time I watched it. I think because I think I watched the first time, I was like, ah, amazing! Like, you know, there's 88 people fighting each other with like samurai swords, and the the kind of the scenes with David Carnegie and Anuma Therma at the end with the kid. It's it's really quite emotional and really quite um it's really great character acting and it's really kind of it it's quite stagey in some ways insofar as it's it's just it's a family when you when you break it down that second film is is kind of just a family drama between uh yeah and and it really works and for a c for a Tarantino film there was a an emotional core I think you don't get in a lot of his other films, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

So for me that I would completely agree. I I would say that Kill Bill 2 is the least Tarantino at that point. Um no, I think that's the least Tarantino of all of his films because it he isn't he he doesn't seem like he's trying to be cool, you know. And it it becomes honest and it's like he's a good writer because things like I love true romance, that's one of my favourite films. Wrote it, didn't direct it, it's excellent. Natural Born Killers is a very good film, wrote, didn't direct from Dust or Dawn, wrote, didn't direct. He's a very good writer, but I think when, as you know, when you see someone who is the writer, director, and producer, you're like, oh nobody is telling you to wind it in. You're being allowed in all three creative outputs to just go full bore. And for Tarantino that's worked, yeah, you know, whatever. But sometimes I'm like, nah, you need someone to sort of go, Are you sure you need another reference to feet?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Yeah, do you have another close-up, man? Come on, you know what I mean. How about these women aren't exploited? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

How about you give the women something to do other than look pretty?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Other pretty, yeah, or be like uh violently uh attacked, violently, yeah, or violently violent, really. Yeah, sort of like a big crap edge.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

But yeah, I mean, I one of the ones that I you know, I I re-watch a lot of films that I didn't like, I watch them more than I watched films I do like because I always double check to make sure that I wasn't just in a bad mood that day. And uh Once Upon a Time, uh jealousy is also a strong one. If I watch a film, I'm like, this is shit, because I'm jealous that they got to make it and I didn't, but I'll admit that I'm wrong. Um, once upon a time in Hollywood was one that I when I first saw it, I was like, this is a pile of shit. I don't know why anyone cares about this. And I said that to my dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:28

Did you not like it? Yeah, I did like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

Love it now. Now I love it. Like my dad said to me, like, go re-watch it. You're like, you're wrong. He's like, I know, I know why you think this, but go re-watch it. And I put it on. First time I watched it, I think I turned it off when he went off to Italy. I didn't even, I was like, I don't give a shit. Yeah, like this is boring, this is slow. Second time I watched it, I was like, Oh my god, this is this is beautiful. I love this film. And now I think between that and Django, like they're my favourite. If I have to watch a Tarantino film, it'd be that or Django, Unchained.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

Yeah, Django, Django's great. I I remember I I I sort of I you know I was sort of doing an A-level film studies when Django came out, and that was like probably the first one I could probably I don't know, it was that kind of time where I was like, wow, this is yeah, it just hit and it was such a great time for me, I think, where I really I could go and see it in the cinema and enjoy it. Yeah, and um because I was a little too young to go and see Inglorious Bastards, so it was like, oh great, I can go, I can go and experience a Tarantino film now. And it was kind of it felt a bit grown up and a bit more not in the as we were saying earlier on, in a kind of like cerebral way, but kind of like, oh yeah, I can kind of go and get in on this club that all everyone else managed to do and and watch something that's a bit you know transgressive and and cool and edgy. Um but yeah, I yeah, I I think I think a lot of them sort of struggle, you know. But personal opinion, you know, they're hard to re-watch. Because they're a lot of quite long as well. You can't really pop on you know um uh Hateful Eight, for example, for for light viewing because it's like similar with like latest Gorsesi films like Killer, you're not gonna like oh I tell you what, let's stick on Killer's the Flower Moon on Well, we got we got a quick four hours, yeah, Irishman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stick that on. Yeah, or maybe we can watch two hours each night for the next two days or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

Let's watch Voyage to Italy all week. Yeah, or is it the six-hour documentary on Italian near realism? And it's like, all right, Scott Sati.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

Yeah, I'm in, all right, but this is long. You're not leaving, you're staffed. You probably could go back, we could go probably at least twice to Italy on a plane in that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

Should have just done that. Yeah. Um nice. Okay, so you've only seen pop fiction once.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:58

Um what in order to have this opinion, I I have I have tried to rewatch at least twice. Yeah, at least I've watched it twice. Um I think it was in that the the kind of time jump from having that watching it at like 15 and being like, This is amazing, and you know, to then watching it maybe like 10 or so years later when you're like, Oh, I can actually, you know what? Um it's good, but I you know, not for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:24

I do think there are some films though that obviously when they come out they're great when they first come out, and whatever age you watch them when they first come out, that's that. But then after their initial release, Fear and Loathing, American Psycho, Pulp Fiction, their films you should watch when you are 15 or 16, and then move on with your life, you know? Like, don't don't glamorise it, don't fear and loathing. I became that became my fucking personality for a while. Like, don't do that, like just enjoy it as a 15-year-old, and then move on, you know. And it's I I think there are certain films that you do need to just sort of go, like, yeah, yeah, when you hit 15, a bit like with your dad being like, right, Untouchables, you're gonna have to watch Sits and Kane, Godfather. You don't look like a fool if you've if you've not seen these. I think when you turn 15, like a parent should sit you down and be like, Virgin suicides, pulp fiction, yeah, fear and loathing, America Psycho, get them on. Go, go, go watch them, yeah. Watch them, enjoy them, and then realize that's it. Don't go and do them again.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:37

Yeah, yeah. It's it it is interesting. I think that is like a really cool subgenre of films, which is like films that most people watch between the ages of 15 and 16, uh that that weirdly become their personalities for a little bit. American Psycho, you know, is is it I think it's because it's that first time where you watch something I would argue that probably has a very strong creative direction, um, or usually you know, a very strong director's kind of vision on it that it's very different, and you're like, wow, okay, this is kind of interesting. Like you films can be like this, they're not just entertainment, they can they can be a bit transgressive, and you know, say similar with with Fear and Loathing. Is I remember I remember my French group watching that at 15 and be like, it's amazing, it's amazing! Yeah, so cool, you know, and it and it's those three films drugs are rad.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:25

Yes, drugs are rad, but stop when you get 18. Yeah, just stop doing them after 18. Stop, come on. Your body will thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:33

But it is is weird, it is those those three films. That'd be a quite good film festival, wouldn't it? Like a kind of uh uh sort of screening series, is films that everyone thinks are cool when you're 15. But it's interesting when people because I uh you know I have a few friends who've watched those films recently, and it's interesting when people come to them a lot later, they they come to them in a very different way. Um, and yeah, and and they're not always they're not always for the best. You know, I know I had you know someone recently who watched um American Horror Story, uh Freudian Slip there. Um oh god, Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, uh American Psycho American Psycho recently, and it was like, yeah, it was okay. I remember like people being so obsessed with that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:15

It's a very kind of I can't watch it again because I've seen it far too many times. Like that's how much I watched it as a 18-year-old, 16-year-old, 17-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:24

Because it's edgy, and I think that's exactly what you want to watch when you're 15 and something that's a bit edgy. It's like not your parents, but it is, it literally is your parents' movies, but like it it like it it's something that you get to choose and is a bit oh am I is it a bit naughty, you know what I mean? It's it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:41

I just realized as well, it's interesting that they're all um American literature of a certain period of time. Like does that I mean with your history and your degree, like there must have been a period where obviously Brett Ellis and Hunter Thompson and all those kind of like other writers where they're books that I think you should read in your twenties. Yeah, you know, and I've got a friend who only just like recently discovered uh Bukowski and he's late 30s, and like when he talks to me about it, I'm like, yeah, Hammon Rai is a really good book, but as a like you know, like as a man who's nearly 40, I don't look at it the same way. I actually am a bit like oh Chuck needs to chill the fuck out and grow up, you know. Like I it it's a very different, you know, those those books you read when you're 20, those films you watch when you're 15, they shouldn't be experienced at any other time because then unfortunately you look at it like really I I totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

I think you know, without sounding too highfalutin about it, I I think that's the one of the beautiful things about art is that you can um when you access it, I think massively changes the way you you perceive it. You know, I partly because it was my degree, you know, I read a lot of um beat poetry, you know, Jack Kerouac, Ginsburg.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:11

Kerouac is is is held up as you know, on the road is held up as this great sort of novel. But exactly, I agree with you. Um, but it it's one of those things where you know you read that between the ages of sort of 17 and 21, something like Catcher on the Rye, those type of books, they're they're made for that time. You don't you can sort of realize afterwards that Karouak was sort of like more or less having his parents pay for him to dick about and write. Um, that you kind of go, you know, it's not as cool, yeah, he's not as cool. But it's it's that same thing, isn't it, with with the films we've been chatting about, is that you you access when you access them, I think is as as as important as as as how good they are, right? Because it's your it it speaks to you in a in a very different way. Similarly on about Star Wars, I had a friend who went um a close friend who sort of knew I was a Star Wars fan and was like, Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna re-watch all the Star Wars. And it was so interesting seeing him, you know you know, in his late 20s go through these films, you know, and he went he did them in in the in the Grand Dad's cutway in in New Hope, uh Empire, go back and then do that one. Yeah and it was he he enjoyed it, but it it's a different it's a different thing. It's I think that's the magic about film is that when you when you when it hits you at the right time it it's it's imprinted on you, isn't it? And and you can't really, I don't know. I is is the kind of I don't know it's one of those questions you can ever ask. If if I had seen Return the Jedi at my age now, would it whereas oh god, fucking Ewoks, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Yeah, I mean Oh this is going on a bit in it, Jesus. You know, um but you say that like my partner Kirsty um I think she said she'd never seen the original Star Wars films, so I was like, Oh, they're great fun, let's put them on. I put on New Hope. They hadn't escaped the Death Star at the beginning, and I sort of looked over and she looked very bored, and I was like, Do you want to turn this off? She's like, This is bad, and I'm like, this is really fucking boring. I don't think I can sit through this. And it's funny that like she was like, I don't care, like I don't care what's happening. And as someone who was like, I loved these films, even I was like, Yeah, you're right. This no, I don't care either. This isn't good. I don't think I can sit through this again. Bumble, not right now, and then we get the cat out, otherwise they'll be on the recording. So it's it becomes very difficult when watching um those films and thinking, like, would I care? Would I still care about that film? But that's the that's the beauty of watching loads of films from a young age.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:47

It is, yeah. Yeah, you never have to wonder what whether you're like you'd have liked Ewoks or not.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

Well, I do think that about um Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park came out when I was five, and I remember knowing at five, going like, what's who's Steven Spielberg? He seems I w I want to do what he does. I want he makes films, I want to make films. And you know, Hook was the first film I saw at the cinema. Spielberg and Jurassic Park were the first time I was aware of what a director was, and then since the age of five, it's the thing I'd known I've wanted to do. So it feels really weird that it's like, oh, imagine if like I I I wasn't old enough and I missed Jurassic Park by one year, and then like I didn't see it at the cinema, my parents said it was too spooky for me, but I remember seeing the ads and being like dinosaurs, they're rad. Yeah, but let's say like I was three when it came out, and then I wasn't cognitively aware of films and stuff until 96, 97. Would I have been as interested? Would would that have triggered the thing that made me go, filmmaking? That's the career, that's the lucrative career I want to get into.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:01

It is, I guess that's one of the beautiful things about it, isn't it? Is like where you know uh it is the is is when these when you watch these things, how they how they shape you and why they shape you, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:16

Well, um that leads us into the final question, which is what have you been watching recently?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

Um what I've been watching recently, I um I am a proud owner of a Cine World Unlimited card, so uh I absolutely wear the plastic off that. I'm I I sort of joke to people, I'm like, I'm just gonna see how many I can watch in a month, maybe try and trigger some sort of financial downfall. Um, because I love I love the cinemas, but like yeah, it's it's it's great because you can it just it forces you to watch more films um and go to the cinema and kind of engage with the cinema a bit more than you would normally. Um so I I watched a lot recently. I watched um I watched Bone Temple, uh 28 Years, uh Anaconda, which I really really enjoyed actually, the the remake or the reboot with Jack Black and Paul Rode, and Rental Family with Brandon Fraser, which I I loved. I thought it was really it's not a film again. I think this is one of the great things about having a limitless card that means that basically films are free now in my head. Um that is a film I wouldn't have necessarily have come to with.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

No, it it's not necessary for the big screen.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:28

No, no, no, no, no, and and that's fine, uh but it's it's very be it's very beautifully crafted film, and it's it's one of those films that you probably I'd have maybe probably watched on like a streaming platform 18 months down the line and probably really enjoyed um when I want like a palette cleanser from more of the genre stuff. Um, but I also re-watched um a film I again really loved when I was a teenager, which is Battle Royale. Um nice, yeah. I rewatched that and again, really you know, held up, uh luckily held up as and they that was kind of in in my in the wheelhouse of 16-year-old uh Jack films.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:05

And I I'm glad you said it held up because I just bought the Blu-ray of it. I really did. Yeah, I was like, I haven't seen that in ages, I'm gonna pick up the Blu-ray. And then there was that fear of like, oh, what if I think it's shit now?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:16

I hope I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

It's it's great, it's really good, and it it it you know again, it's one of those moments where it's like someone watches it after they watch Hunger Games or something, and like, oh, this is basically you know, and it it's it's it I think what's great about it is that kind of a like 90s Japanese cinema thing, which is like we are gonna just show how horrible human human beeblings are and go full tilt for this in a way that Western cinema probably wouldn't now, you know. Maybe they maybe they would now, you know, but with a kind of x-ray to how lucrative kind of horror is at the moment. But it it's just really raw and it's really uh it's a big swing, and it's it's just yeah, it's it's cool. It it's a really great film. And I you know, I I remember watching it, I watched it a lot as well when I was when I was younger, and it was great to kind of come back to it and go, this is really cool. And there's and you see all the the actors. I think one of the actor actresses ended up being in Kill Bill. She was um yeah, uh, what's her name?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:14

The one with the the the mace, yeah. Um I can't remember what her name is, but I remember I remember her being in it. Yeah. I think when I first saw uh Kill Bill or Battle Royale, I don't know which one I saw first, but I remember thinking like, oh, it's it's that girl. Also, like Takeshitano, like I recently went back and watched um like what is it, Violent Cops, Son Nateen, and uh maybe Boiling Point? No. Okay. And they're all sort of like him being a nasty bastard films, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Yes, and he's very good at that, isn't he?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:53

He's be but he's a comedian. Like that's what he's in Japan, he was known as like was it like beat Katano or something? Like he's known as this like comedian, like funny guy, and then he did these like horrible tough guy films where he showed he was a real nasty piece of shit, and then he did Battle Royale in the Zatawitchi film, and everyone was like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, now he's done it, he's done such a great turn. And you're like, Alright, looking hell. He's he's cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

It's all okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:23

Yeah, I guess it's a bit like uh Eric Banner, like in Australia, he's known as like a comedian, and then he did Chopper, and everyone was like, Yeah, a comedian's gonna play fucking Mark Brendan Reid gets off. And it was like, oh shit, he was really good at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

Yeah, I said, Yeah, I mean if they can do it, they can do it. I mean, I I think I I want to watch more Japanese film um and really sounds such so good film thing to say. Um no no no no no no no, but yes. I watched um I watched uh you know Takeshi Mike is is obviously like again a big Japanese horror icon, and I watched uh Graveyard of Honor.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:59

Um I haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

It's it's wild. It was it's a remake of a 1972 film. Um it's like a Yakuza film. Um so I guess it's like the equivalent of sort of like a sort of old school Scosezi sort of um yeah, but it's like Takeshimike doing it, so it's just wild, and it's like I remember sat I was sat there like kind of like you know with a few friends, like oh we'll watch a film, like let's pick a film, you know. Like we'll we did like a film night every Friday, and it was like, oh, we'll pick this. And I was like, the first 20 minutes, I was like, this is this is obscene. This is like so bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:34

Just put on visit a cue, make it make it feel less weird, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:38

And it was just a bit like wow, that was that was quite it went. I think it's like a two and a maybe two hours forty film. It felt it felt like a two hours forty film, and I was just like by the end of it, it's like oh there's another there's another murder, oh there's another kind of obscene thing that's happening, oh there's another thing, and it's like what's oh god I've got one here that I haven't watched yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:57

Um Shinjuku Triad Society. That looks cool, and that's a Takeshi Mikave one. It's horrendous violence. Probably. It's the first of three of the critically acclaimed Triad Society trilogy, followed by Rainy Dog and Ley Lines.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:22

Okay. So stick it on.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

Move the camera so you can watch the Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:29

Maybe I need to need to get I've added Takeshi Mike drought, I'll have to come back and um Yeah, do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:35

Yeah, that's what you need. More Takeshi Mike in your life. I will say, when you say you need to watch more Japanese cinema in your life, uh, you're talking to a man who tried to learn Japanese so I could watch it without the subtitles, so I could get fully immersed in it. And uh didn't didn't do too well. I learned some Japanese. I could I bought um I bought mangas, like kids' manga books in Japanese, uh, because here's a weird one for you. If you have an Amazon Prime account and then create a login for like it, you know, Amazon.com but Amazon.jp, yeah, you'll go to there, sign in with your account, and just put your normal address. They will ship to you uh either on your prime or very cheap.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:27

So I was able to order Japanese language mangas uh to my house, and I don't think I paid like that much for postage. Wow. So it was weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:36

Amazon Japan hack. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

There you go, everyone. Get on it. Actually, no, don't, because I don't want them to figure it out, then I gotta buy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

Yeah, exactly. They're gonna be like, how was going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:46

But I was I was I bought like uh kids' Japanese books, and then just you know, I learnt Hiragana, and uh I was like, okay, I'm gonna learn how to read them, so then I've got to get my vocabulary up, and then I would watch Japanese film and TV. TV shows without subtitles and see if I could just get the gist a lot easier on TV than film. And I did it to a point where I could kind of like I kind of understood what was happening, but no nuance. So I was just as lost as if I just wasn't watching the subtitles. So I thought, well, this is pointless. And uh yeah, now I'll hear the occasional word and I'll be like, I know that one. I know that one word. Neko, cat, got it. Cat did it. No, no, no, no, didn't say Neko. I got nothing. Uh so yeah. It's uh yeah, Japanese films, they're one of my favourites.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

So yeah, I mean there's the the classics, like your Kurosawa and you know Ram and Throne of Blur, yeah, stuff like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:50

Kurosawa is beautiful. Um but yeah, I also really enjoy the other Kurosawa. Uh but he did what was it, Cure and Pulse, and then he did Chime recently, which is only 45 minutes. Ah, it's so good.

unknown 1:29:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:08

It's real good. Check those out. But yeah, it's uh Japanese cinema. I think it just Japanese cinema and South Korean cinema have a real like nihilistic view that they can do misery and that they don't feel bad about leaving you fucking feeling shit afterwards. Whereas, as you were saying earlier, like Hollywood could do it now, but very much in that vanishing way, like the original vanishing film, miserable, the Hollywood remake that's directed by the same director, actually got a happy ending in comparison because they're like, Oh, Hollywood audiences don't want to finish a film feeling really shit about their lives, and it's like, oh, but the filmmaker doesn't owe you a happy ending, like let we can feel bad, acknowledge that, yeah, and then move on.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:03

Gabriel Katarsis, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:05

Yeah, but who knows? Um it's good that you're going to the cinema. I like that you're a regular cinema goer. I think it's uh it is important because they'll just they'll just not exist soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:16

Yeah, and I I love it. I think it's a real kind of um for me anyway, I it's like a moment where you you you're forced to isn't a kind of meditative way, like you are kind of forced to just switch off and and be present um in a way that a lot of you don't really get chance to do nowadays. You know, you know, everyone sort of not to sound like an old person, but like everyone is on their phone a lot, and I'm guilty of it myself. And when you have those moments where you can, you know, turn your phone off and not have to talk to anyone and not be kind of asshole, it is lovely and it's great. And that for me that is as much a big part of it than kind of seeing it on the kind of format it's in it's intended to do. And you you are kind of I don't know, you are always with sort of streaming. I think when you've got the ability to pause it and do something else, or get a coffee, or get a tea, or go to the toilet. You will you will do it because you can, and and and it I you know, I I think it was actually Tarantino talking about it, is uh I'm probably badly paraphrasing, but saying that you know that is the o that's the kind of the unbridled version of the direct how the director wants you to view that film because you have to view it in the way that they're viewing it. You can't decide to turn it off, or you know, it's you're kind of surrendering your agency to the filmmaker at that point and go, okay, I'm sat here for say 90 minutes, show me what you got, and I'm all yours. And I think that's really lovely, you know? It's it's it's it's a it's a it's a dying art, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:42

You know, there's um who is it? I don't know which I think it might be Paul Thomas Anderson. None of his films on DVD or Blu-ray have scene selection.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:54

I think I think it's him because it's like, no, no, no, watched my film.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:00

If you have to stop at any point, you have to start again. You can't just pick and choose where you want to go. And I was like, that's that's wonderful, but that's also like when chefs say, like, I don't want salt and pepper on the tables because it should be seasoned enough. And it's like, well, yes, but sometimes, you know, sometimes I need to genuinely pause it for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:23

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I wonder how he's gonna feel about you know his films being turned into like 800-part TikToks with voiceover. I don't get I don't get those. Have you seen those? The ones where it's like it's like the AI voiceover of like it's like a clip from the Green Mile, but then it's like the character's voice narrating what he's doing in the scene while it's it's kind of too meta for me. I'm like, this is just kind of and then I did this. I got the like, oh man.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:55

I can't engage with anything film-related on TikTok or Instagram. I just get so angry so quickly. I'm like, no, just watch it. What's wrong with you? You know, no more clips. I'm not even 40, and I'm acting like a 60 year old.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:10

Just just just watch the film. Old man Yells at Cloud, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:14

Oh, yeah. That is me. That's me. Um, all right. Well, it's been great chatting to you. Uh, I hope you've had a good time reminiscing about films.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:23

It's been um it's been fantastic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:27

Um, and uh yeah, do you want to do a shout-out for anything? Do you want to shout out your pod or shout out for the documentaries that are coming out?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:33

Or yeah, um, so I got the shout-out First Frights at First Frights on Instagram and TikTok, uh, which is a uh horror podcast where I interview guests about the very first film that scared them. So tune in on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:50

Do it, do it, do it, do it. It's good. I will link it in the um in the show notes. So if you're listening and just want to randomly easily click, that'll be available to you. So, yes. So thank you very much for coming on and uh yeah, I hope to speak to you soon. Yeah, speak soon.