The Personal History of David Copperfield & Tumble Leaf

David Copperfield

Reegs:   Welcome to bad dad's film review and welcome to 2021. That's it. Huddle round, the wireless wiped the dribble from your chin. And once again, suckler our collective podcast teats. As together, we ensure approximately an hour and a half closer to your inevitable death. There'll be some stupid spoiler-y content and some silly language as usual.

There may or may not be a quiz that is in fact, the first spoiler of the evening as there isn't. It's all the usual bad dads deceiving, except it's not as Dan has been unfortunately suspended from the pod due to an ongoing investigation into allegations that he created a hostile and toxic workplace, allegedly harassed junior staff and fostered an atmosphere of microaggressions and casual racism in the statement, Dan called you all feckless cunts, and then went on to significantly embezzle the Make-A-Wish foundation. We do have, however, the absolutely immense society.

Sidey: Hello.

Reegs: And the absolutely dense Howie, Howie, a man you'd like to spend a new year's Eve with almost as much as you would look forward to being forced to repeatedly throw hand grenades at your own children's school. What are you going to do this year? I hear you ask, well, I'll tell you that for the sofa, dwelling and imprisoned, populous, such as ourselves, we have a new bond movie to enjoy the sequel to a quiet place.

I'd go brights last night in Soho it the many saints of Newark and on TV, new series of better call Saul and succession to enjoy. So let's look forward to a great new 2021. Yay.

Howie: Living the dream may,

Sidey: Do you watch Jonathan Good this week?

 Howie: This week I've been mostly preparing for homeschool. And when I say preparing for homeschool, well, I mean, just ensuring that the iPad is charged up Disney plus is working and Minecraft is fully available Disney plus. So I say it now every week I've got it. It is the savior for 20, 20, 20, 21 crossover.

What a, what? An absolute awesome, awesome idea. It was of me to buy myself it for Christmas. And when I

Reegs: and now your kids are watching it.

Howie: Yeah, it was brilliant. I don't care. It's the gift that keeps on giving. I'm loving

Sidey: it is. It's brilliant. Yeah. That, and we've been a lot of Netflix has been heavily, heavily used this week in our house. My daughter's absolutely hooked on how to train your dragon as it's been fucking relentless in that. And I watched it the midnight sky, the Clooney one

Reegs: Yeah. Was that any good?

Howie: yeah, it's

Sidey: I really enjoyed it.

It did get a bit of a panic when it came out. But it's it's all right. Yeah, I enjoyed it. It's just definitely worth a look. I'd say.

Howie: I I've been hammering still the box sets of fringe and it did a weird one. So imagine watching an entire series. So 20 episodes then going into series two, and then, then adding an extra episode to series one into series twos, viewing, share jewel. So, do you see what I mean? So that's so basic.

So they basically made 21 episodes for God. So this is, they forgot to include one of the episodes. And then halfway through series two, added it in, it contains characters that are dead in series one. There's no like explanation of what's going on. I missed this and I thought sky Q had fucked up. So we had to, like, we went online, went to.

A few sites, sadly, fringe Wiki, because we're that into it now we're proper Sandoz. And it said, yeah, the, the film, the, the, the distribution company forgot about one episode forgetting one

Reegs: amazing. That's amazing. I watched the pilot on your recommendation Howie. Cause I fancied something a bit. Yeah.

Howie: Oh, everyone fucking melts.

Reegs: Yeah, it, it didn't grab me, but does it get better? Yeah.

Howie: I think it does. So maybe give another episode a try,

Reegs: Okay. I really liked the hammy doctor, dad. He was ridiculous.

Howie: what's good about it is it has a finality, so it's not like a lost, that goes on and on and on. And then fucking, just sort of whimpers out at the end. This has a proper ending from what I can sort of remember. So, but that's the thing I need.

The other thing I want to get into is obviously based on your recommendations is Sopranos. I still have faffed about and watched a couple of episodes and then got distracted, but I need to get into it.

Reegs: week, I have somehow managed to both discover and lose the wonderful metal mask, super rapper, MF doom, or just doom. I don't know how I'd managed to bypass this complete area of cultural engagement, but I had, so I was been listening to it ever since you were talking about it the other day. So I D

Sidey: Yeah, it's amazing. He got a purple patch, whereas unbelievably prolific, it was album after album, after album, it makes and all these other things they did with other people. And then kind of just slowed right down. And I don't know, because when the, when the news came out that he passed away, there was, there was no, Explanation or, or cause of death.

So I don't know whether he'd been ill for a long time and hadn't done things for that reason, but I mean it's terribly sad anyway, but we're just lucky to have had that amazing amount of output from some fucking great, great MC great lyricist.

Reegs: It reminded me a little bit of cool Keith in the whole like multiple personas

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: yeah. Great.

Howie: so you have to see is, is gimmick, if you like, was that mask, which the guy of the league of gentlemen used to wear the villain. Yeah. That's what the doing mask. That's what I thought that's what the do mask was, but I hadn't heard of him. I don't know how I missed that. Either eggs.

Sidey: it, but it was a massive star necessarily, but people who I dunno, like sound or fucking Ponce, but people who liked that kind of music knew about him. And

Reegs: but I liked that kind of music. So it's really seems crazy though. I've missed him, but I have,

Sidey: In any case last week we did a top five about bank jobs.

Reegs: Yes. You had a nomination from the hideous populous. Did you not Howie the great

Howie: Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie and Clyde with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. And they drive that car at the end and get shot to share it as the dudes pop out the bushes, like all good. Doggers do

Sidey: I discovered some people dogging. Did I tell you about that?

Reegs: you actually discovered them.

Howie: discovered them through Google.

Sidey: No, I just stumbled across it.

Howie: There's stumbled over them while you

Reegs: this a, the recycling

Howie: around your

Sidey: Yeah, it was, it was, it was, yeah. I w I was I

Reegs: Are you being serious?

Sidey: Yeah, I actually took some recycling up there a couple of hours ago, just to see if it was a one-off occurrence or they, it was like a regular meeting place.

And so far it's only been that one off, but I'll keep going back just to see if I can, it met with

Reegs: So what did you see?

Sidey: I went up there and it was a car with all its lights on and I hesitated. Cause I thought, Oh, they must be about to leave. I was going to say putting out, but that's a different context. And say for like, I dunno, it wasn't that long, but they didn't move. So I thought, but I thought nothing of it as I went past them got my junk out put it away.

And as I was just about to leave, I was like, they're still there with all the lights on. And as I drove past, there was all like steamy windows and stuff. And I was like, hang on a minute. Is it what I think it is. And I've now convinced myself that it is, I'm sure there's going to be a Facebook group where you can find out if this is a, you know, a regular

Reegs: well, if you're a member of, if you're a listener in you're a member of the dogging community, perhaps you could text or email in

Howie: could tack Sidey into one of your posts,

Sidey: Well, funnily enough, just, just after I got back, I turned on a fucking shitloads of cardboards to get recycled and the postman had arrived with another two massive fucking boxes. So I've got another reason to go back tomorrow. So I could like go once a year, every day, just to see maybe I just got the wrong day.

Howie: she'd take the message. Take it as a family day out, you know, look

Sidey: well, that's how she refers to the recycling. Are you going to go dogging? So. So Bonnie and Clyde anyway

. All right. I did the nominating for this week and we're going to talk about Epic movies with a plus three hour run time who wants to go first?

Reegs: I just

Howie: go, go, go. Oh, there we

Reegs: does two hours and 59 minutes. No, I'm only joking.

Sidey: Well, well, I, I did categorically state over three hours when I nominated, but I do have one that's just three hours.

Howie: Yeah, I

Reegs: What exactly? Three.

Howie: Yeah. They say it says exactly

Reegs: what is it? Tell us

Sidey: Wolf of wall street.

Howie: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: it's that? Exactly. Three is it? I've got that on my list.

Sidey: Yes, but then it's unanimous. We've all. Got it. I think we should include it.

Reegs: Yeah, Martin Scorsese the tale of Jordan Belfort, real life stockbroker played by Leonardo DiCaprio,

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: dream, literally having sex on piles of money. Absolutely off his mind on various drugs. Yeah.

Sidey: What's the guy who has got the shoe companies that Steve Madden, I just spent ages getting food from there. The most memorable thing for me about that movie was Margot Robbie. And in particular, the scene where she sat on the floor. Telling him, you know, reading the riot act to him. It's, she's just fucking unbelievable in that film. Well, in every film actually, but I'm particularly hot in this

Reegs: it's not the only Scorsese movie I have on my list. I have to say.

Sidey: Here's a good one though. I was, I don't think I knew when I first saw it, that it was Scorsese and it doesn't necessarily present it. It doesn't immediately strike me as being a Scorsese sort of movie.

Reegs: You don't think

Sidey: No, I don't think so, but that's good. I suppose. I don't know. I really

Howie: because it's because the film comes across in places is just a complete big joke. Look at how Jonah Hill has got his false

Reegs: the

Howie: and

Sidey: he just, he just steals the movie for me, I

Howie: yeah.

Yeah That's what I mean

Reegs: Mahogany is very good in it. Well,

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: I know alongside this, I've got Scorsese's   straight to  Netflix classic, which isn't another generic action movie or convoluted, low budget. Saifai as you'd probably expect, but it's actually the onscreen adaptation of Charles Brandt memoirs.

I heard you paint houses. Or the Irishman following Robert de Niro's truck driver eventually becomes a Hitman for Pitino is Jimmy Hoffa. I'm going to do the least hot take ever, which is this movie is far too long. I really enjoyed that. I did enjoy it. It would have been way better as a mini series or something.

Howie: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good

Reegs: but it was just too fucking long as a movie. And the D aging didn't really bother me.

Sidey: a hundred percent. I'm glad you said that because it doesn't work at all. For me in this, it still walks like an old man.

Reegs: Yeah

Sidey: it. I, to be honest with you, I haven't even finished this film. I got about two hours in I've. I've not gone back to it.

Howie: could you see the weird like offscreen photos that came out of dinero and Pachino wearing like platform lifts and like weird clothes and stuff because they were made to look

Reegs: go for a night on the town.

Howie: Yeah. When they were younger, it's really, it was, they they've got like Tom cruise style, Elton John platform, boats.

Sidey: Disco, stay with a goldfish in

him

Howie: this cause it's do,

Reegs: And that's where I'm going to get you

Howie: odd

It's really quite odd. And I agree with you. Sid promised it looked like it could be good. I got into the first hour and then it just dragged. And I I bet it got worse because I knew that there was another two and a bit hours to go. So it was like, Ugh,

Sidey: yeah, it was a bit it's a bit like everyone trying to reclaim their former glory to me. And I was just a bit bored by it. I just, I dunno, maybe I need to revisit and get a proper,

Reegs: I did like it, but it's, it's just too, too goddamn long.

Sidey: or how are you? What have you got for

Howie: your

sex tape?

Sidey: He wishes.

Howie: I'm going to go for I'm going to go for an easy one, three hours and two minutes. I'm going for the Avengers end game. I took my kids to see this at the cinema and they lost it, the whole length of it without pissing themselves, which was an absolute moment of history.

I don't know how they, either of them managed it. Cause I was, I was about to burst the colostomy bag, but Yeah that the, the, the end of the, the, the, well, not the end, because they're going to fucking rinse as much more out of it as they can, but it was the end of that timeline film the, I think the world more or less saw and it's on sky shed loads, but I haven't revisited it

Sidey: Disney plus Disney plus.

Howie: Yeah

Reegs: you should buy it again. First Howie, and then

Howie: yeah, I was gonna do that. yeah

Sidey: It's, it's amazing to think of a comic book movie of that length. If you, you don't even have to go back that long ago, if you went to the studio, as a filmmaker said, right, I'm going to make a comic book movie I'm looking at about three hour plus runtime. There is get the fuck out of my office. Like there's no fucking way that's getting made.

And yeah. You know, it's been done and not only that, but it's stopped the back of 23 films, something like that.

Reegs: Yeah,

Howie: It's a whole decade

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: I guess it was always going to be a home run, no matter what it was, but the fact that it's actually really good is worth celebrating.

Howie: I looked at my kids and they were, they were outwardly doing what I was thinking, which was cheering during the final battle scene.

Sidey: there was people chairing when I watched it at captain America, when he got

Reegs: my own there.

Howie: Oh

yeah,

Sidey: Type of guy and fucking apeshit. I can only make, cause I don't know if you've ever watched a film in the States, but their cinema audiences are way more animated.

Reegs: Much rowdier. Yeah.

Sidey: I would imagine over there people would fucking go and bananas.

Like it was just fucking great. For me, I'm going to nominate probably not the one that I'm going to end up putting in, but it's one that I know rigs particularly enjoys and it's a lot of the rings return of the King. Yeah.

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: Is that the only one that's over three hours.

Sidey: Well, I'm specifically mentioning the extended cut, which is four hours, 23 minutes.

Howie: Have you watched it? Have you

Sidey: Yeah, I had, I had the box out of all the extended ones and I watched a more obviously the, the ending alone is it's got to be over an hour, like were after the fucking got rid of the ring. Yeah.

Howie: all the high fiving

and dancing around

the bed.

Sidey: This fucking hobbits and they just will not fuck off. It just goes on and on and in the cinema, which obviously is not the extended one, but it's still, I think, still over three hours and you know, you're, you're done, you've finished the story you want to get out there and go for Pierce or whatever, or just get the fuck out of there.

And it just, it sort of does a slow fade. Oh, here they are again. Yeah, fuck off. But you just fucking leave.

Howie: The

Shire, the

Shire

Sidey: it makes us really like it, but I love, I really love this. I think

Reegs: was the running time for that last one? Again? Four

Sidey: four hours, 23. Yeah. No need

Howie: the cinema one is 201 minutes. Yeah.

Sidey: It's decent. The only bit that I think doesn't work anymore is. When I go and gets that army of the, on the bed, like the ghost, and it's just like a shit cloud that runs through and kills everyone in about five seconds. It's a bit,

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: bit cheating that one, but everyone else stands up.

I really like it still. There's a Amazon series coming out. A lot of being serious.

Reegs: I'll watch that.

Sidey: It's been in production for a long while. 

Reegs: The third, the apocalypse trio, which also includes resident evil apocalypse and  apocalypse. The pre-qual apocalypse now is Francis Ford. Coppola's movie exploring.

Howie: where you're going.

Reegs: The themes of Joseph Conrad's heart of darkness and exposes just how thin the line between civilization and savagery is. This is a great movie.

Sidey: you. Have to have a specific cut though. Don't you?

Reegs: You have to have to Redux,

Sidey: Yeah, redox is a shitload longer.

Reegs: an hell of a lot. And a lot of it is on the plantation that the French guys own Cambodian French or whatever it is. And it's really dull. But the movie itself is a series of stunning and often haunting shots linked by a riverboat, traveling down a river.

Surprisingly, you've got obviously what the fuck? Nah,

Howie: roads.

Reegs: Wagner company helicopters. You've got Larry Fishburne gunning down an entire family because the little girl wanted to grab her pet dog. So something for everyone. Yeah, it's not a chuckle face. There's loads of great. Every, you fucking know this is a great movie show.

Sidey: That was one of the main takeaways from this whole thing is that the comedies don't really stretch to three hours very often.

Reegs: No,

Sidey: I don't have a whole lot of comedic fare. In my list.

Reegs: I've got pal Harper. I don't know if that counts.

Sidey: I've never seen it because it wasn't that well received when it came out. If you recall.

Howie: Ken, I've got Ken dog live he's about five hours.

Sidey: Okay

Joel our colleague, friend of mine, who's from Sheffield. That's not relevant. He was a big Ken Dodd fan.

Howie: Yeah. That

he

Sidey: one of the main things that he said about him was that if you went to see him, he was great value for money. Cause it went on for ages. I'm like, wait, it might not be funny for any of that time, but at least, you know, it goes on for

Reegs: it's like people who go, Oh, what was that restaurant like? And they're like, ah, portion sizes were massive. Like it's absolute slop, but there's fucking loads of it. Just gorgeous yourself. Disgusting. Fuck.

Howie: fucking salad Dodger.  I'm going to go for a classic film that I've watched many times whilst I used to get looked after my, by my grandparents. I was a 30 at the time. No Lawrence of Arabia.

Sidey: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Howie: weekends would be spent round my grandparents, either watching the cricket was my granddad made various comments about the state of English cricketers, and then some what would be probably deemed very racist comments about any form of non English nationality.

No rock, not racist. Xenophobic varies in a

Sidey: Old fashioned. Let's just call it old fashioned

opinions

Howie: And we'd all watch cricket or we'd watch a film that was on BBC two And it invariably was one of my other choices that will come up or it was Lawrence of Arabia which kit's in a mighty three hours 48 And it is Epic It is absolutely Epic with Omar Sharif and  the visual stunning shots

Sidey: It's David Lane has man. It's a real Epic. I think it's relatively blossomed with soluble. Easy to be Epic if you film the desert. Cause it just

Howie: yeah. Th th yeah. Yeah. There is an element of that, admittedly.

Sidey: I think this is a confession for rigs. Isn't it?

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not, not seeing it yet.

Howie: you need to, you need to be

Sidey: He dies.

Howie: to watch it.

Reegs: It's really long. I could have watched two really shit movies in the time that it would take

Sidey: spoiler alert, but everything that we're talking about in this list as long.

Reegs: Yeah, I know that is one of the things I really noticed.

Sidey: Okay.

Reegs: All of the movies were long.

Sidey: It's a good one. You should definitely check it out. I think if you claim to be interested in cinema, you should have watched the Lawrence of Arabia. So there. Sort of linked in that it's not really Gandy.

Reegs: Yeah. Also I spent a lot of time in the desert.

Sidey: yeah, that's why I was thinking.

Howie: It's a three hours of Ben Kingsley guy.

Reegs: eight budgets, Michael it's.

Sidey: It's three hours, 11 minutes. This one obviously another Epic, the best film, but he won best actor. Did he? I

Howie: Dick was

Attenborough was the director. Wasn't

Sidey: yeah probably wouldn't happen in the same way these days because of the casting would almost certainly not be allowed, but that's interesting when you look at the film that we're going to talk about later on.

Because it's kind of the reverse. But yeah, another, another true ethic of that, the sort of old school director, I guess, David lean and Dickie appro both sort of an older generation and they probably want to make films with this larger scope, this bigger scale. And these films certainly have that about them.

Howie: well, just the, the amount of people that are in Gandy. I mean, th th the call to arms of all the local people. So just, you've got to come out with we're filming we're filming a funeral, whatever,

Sidey: Yeah, the funeral was saying was they might have extra things like quarter of a million or so it wasn't, it was absolutely immense

Howie: could be even more, it could be even more and people

Sidey: bigger than that. It's huge.

Howie: Yes.

 Reegs: Peter Jackson's King Kong. The plot involves a 25 foot tall gorilla or a blonde girl and a prominent New York. Landmark by the end of the movie, the fates of these three may or may not turn out to be intertwined. I don't want to spoil too much. They could have got to the Island a bit faster, I think, but it's a movie.

Yeah. I do quite enjoy that movie or I did enjoy it. I am going to talk about Pearl Harbor. Ben Affleck plays a functionally illiterate pilot in a love triangle with Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale Hubba Hubba for racial diversity reasons or something.  Cuba Gooding Jr. Is in it for about 20 minutes.

As a real life cook, who did actually perform brave and was the first black man to actually be awarded the Navy cross. But it's, don't worry about it. We don't really see him in the film that much because Michael Bay this is the Bay movie that most seems like the end scene of a dystopian Saifai.

He creates these Adeleke scenes to buy the surreal sight of invading foreign bombers. There's a baseball game. There's a woman hanging out their laundry, even an astronauts. I shit, you know how to eating a slice of Apple pie off of the cover of a Bible, the DVD extras and I'm indebted to some website or other for finding this out for me not me actually watching the extras, but on the director's commentary, which was filmed just a few days after nine 11.

Michael Bay, openly brags about singling out a kid in front of 500 other extras and shouting at him for screwing up a shot. So good job millionaire director of Victoria's secret commercials. You really showed that kid who can keep a straight face in the background of your universally despised movie.

Sidey: Yeah, here's the piece of shit. Don't Americans. Just not like it because they effectively lost they've. They were, you know, it was a battle where they got their asses kicked or bit

Reegs: I think everybody hates it. Cause it shit isn't it. That's just the reason everybody hates it. Just tone deaf.

 Sidey: Well, I can comment because I'm not seeing it, but I, you know, based on the feedback, add what you've added to it, it's not what I'm going to sort of search

Reegs: No, I wouldn't.

Sidey: This is one I didn't see until just a few years ago, but it's from 1984. It's once upon a time in America.

Reegs: I've not seen that either, you know?

Sidey: It's fucking great. It's really good. It's nearly four hours long. It's three hours, three hours, 49.

Reegs: That's DeNiro, isn't it?

Sidey: yeah. And James' words.  It's yeah. I also caught him in an episode of Simpsons recently cause we've planned through all that.

It's really great. It's it, it spans their whole life. It's got that kind of, you know, the godfather where they go back to the roots of it all. And. It's it they're washed out home, but that way, because I could take a break, it's got that about it, but it's it's the whole prohibition speakeasy kind of vibe and they're running the sort of booze in the town classic sort of gangster story and their rise through the ranks.

But it's a Leoni film. It's it's fucking great. It was on prime when I watched it. Hopefully it still is. Cause it's, I would definitely recommend it. You catch it.

  Howie: I'm going to go for JFK three hours, 26 the Oliver stone film with Kevin Costner, which basically made everybody aware of the Warren report and It added fuel to being more mainstream, the whole conspiracy theory thing.

Sidey: We need any more of that.

Howie: yeah. Well that's the thing and it's an a and but basically it kind of added more fuel to the fire for the JFK conspiracy, especially I think a lot of it got thrown out.

Since that film was made, but at the time I can't for the life of me, remember the name of the film that they study, but there's you can go on YouTube and you can review the name of the individual who had the famous footage of Jackie jumping over the back of the car to the secret service agent.

But there's all sorts of people rewinding, zooming in super, super Definition of the images that will show all sorts of stuff. But the film is really long. It's exhaustive. It's a typical stone. It's almost a documentary, but again, I enjoyed it, thought it was good.

Sidey: I haven't seen that one. I, in fact, I haven't seen very much Oliver stone stuff at all.

Reegs: Well, there's a few that you would want to check out. I mean, you've seen platoon presumably

Sidey: Yeah. I've seen that one.

Reegs: wall street.

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: no, I'm not seeing Nixon. That's Anthony shotguns, isn't

Reegs: Yeah. Have you seen Walter, have you seen wall street?

Sidey: No. I seen a little bit of it. Not I've seen it, the

Howie: Oh, you haven't seen, Ooh, I would. I would, I would watch wall street before this wall street will make you laugh because it's so fucking terrible.

Reegs: and it's an hour shorter, probably as well.

Howie: you was to say maybe even two hours shorter.

  Reegs:  Earlier, which is Paul Thomas Anderson's collection of stories that interlock through themes of loneliness and people trying their best and failing and begging for forgiveness. And you get so much, including an absolutely stunning turn from Tom cruise. As a TV evangelist. It's amazing. It's got an amazing cast.

Julia Moore, John C. Reilly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It's got a brilliant soundtrack. It is long. It does really have an ending that see that, you know, that it needs to be seen to be believed. Uh, Yeah. Great movie. Terrific movie.

Sidey: There's a strange noise there. Now. It's getting

Reegs: Yeah. It's your dildo bleeping again? Howie.

Howie: Hang on. I'll just turn it down from

Reegs: Typhoon.

Sidey: That's it. Your love eggs.

Howie: it's um, it's my real doll.

Sidey: I did say that there were no comedies, but I do have the green mile, which is three hours, nine minutes. And that is the real

Howie: that's a laugh a minute. That

Sidey: I mean, to be honest, it does have some comedic scene, some, some light relief, but obviously

Well, there's the pie is there's that what's the space, the the sort of mischievous naughty the one who eats the pie and spits out all over the the gauges.

There's there's the odd moment. There's this ongoing saga of Tom Hanks, not being able to take a piss because of his kidney stones which he gets groped

Howie: what he has?

Reegs: gets groped and that sorts him out. Doesn't it.

Sidey: Yeah. He grabbed his Dick and waxed them out of him.   Both ultimately the

Howie: of Christ compels me.

Sidey: I, I watched this at the movie theater and it was definitely, I could hear people prophet blubbing in the audience,

Reegs: I quite like this movie, I have

Sidey: I really like the smoothies.

Well, of course you'd like it it's fucking, really good. It's Aye. Aye. What's not to like, it's just fucking great. It's another what's his face? Stephen King adaptation. It was Frank Darabont. Which is, did he follow, do you follow Shawshank with this one?

Reegs: Mo if he did that's two

Sidey: a, it's a double bill of pretty Epic proportions.

Yeah. And he's, he's no longer with us for real.

Reegs: It's pretty awful when the mouse gets stamped on spoiler alert.     I've got a Kira Caruso is seven samurai. It was his 15th movie, but his first samurai movie would you believe it made more money than the original Godzilla, which also came out the same year? It's a movie that's justifiably worshiped by snooty, film, Barthes, and people who really enjoy all the low brow shit that I like, like martial arts and action movies as well.

Great story. Simple, elegant. But it takes, it's got a long running time, so it takes the time to let us to get to know its characters. It's a powerful tragedy, fantastic movie. I think Dave Lambert introduced me to it. Thanks Dave.

Sidey: I watched it at school for cause I studied media studies like a real nerd. And we watched it for that because we were studying actually one of the topics we looked at were westerns. So obviously you had magnificent seven. And this was obviously what that came from. So we watched it then. And like you say music, it could be a bit sort of hipstery.

Oh, I like fucking foreign language stuff, and this is an old day as well, but it it's just a fucking, really good film. So, you know, fuck off it's hipster, dickheads.

Howie: you, you will. It's really cool stuff. School then, cause I also worked really cool stuff. The only film I've watched at school was a point break because. Yeah, P got canceled

and

John Kelly only had one video and he put it on the TV on the stand that you wheeled in.

Sidey: Oh, yeah.

Howie: it was, and then w w w then we asked if we could not go to French because French was quote unquote shit.

And they let us watch the rest of the point break. Cause it was just raining, you know, the quality of education at some of the institutions that I went to. It was just outstanding.

Sidey: Media studies was good. We did yeah, Western. So we watch searches. Good the bad and the ugly stuff like that. I've shamed that fucking kid and, and their depression in, by the 1940s. So the third man revealing stuff or that sort of thing. And then some other stuff that I kind of remember. Yeah, it was loads of good stuff.

It was really good.

Howie: My next one is three hours, 17, and it's Schindler's lifts. It's a story of a elevators going up and down the CPI building. And it's just occasionally gets stuck on the third floor. Cause some practice press the second floor, but you want to go to the fourth and it just goes on for about three hours, 17, and then you get out and you have a coffin and you're done.

It's pretty, pretty,

Reegs: so Schindler's list. And you said there were no comedies on this list.

Howie: Yeah,

no

Sidey: was going to do my my intro tragic remodelers as the Schindler's list, but I thought, Hmm. No, I won't go there.

Howie: I'm sure I read I'm sure. Frankie. Is it someone like Frankie balsa Schindler's list is proof that there's nothing on the internet I went to it was either that or Saddam Hussein's hanging. I can't remember, but yeah,

Sidey: I don't, I don't remember this being so long to be honest, but I've not seen it for a really long time.

Howie: no. I think we discussed in earlier pods that. This is one of those films that you've, you've obviously seen, but you've not revisited because you don't need to.

Sidey: Yeah, it's powerful.

Howie: but it's the truth. Yeah. It's that powerful. It's that powerful of film. So

Sidey: My main takeaway from it is that the girl with the red coat is what really stands out in my memory of it

Reegs: Yes.

Howie: been copied, that idea has been copied in other films as well of the sort of, it's almost like the breadcrumb trail.

 Sidey:  running out. But how about. Oh, it's just some really good ones. Actually. Dan Hunter just charging it three hours, four minutes. It's came out the year I was born, so that's got that going for it. And also has the, the barely memorable, memorable moment of the Russia roulette

Reegs: Yeah. Haunting, absolutely haunting.

Sidey: Takes probably 50% of its Goodwill is lost by having Meryl Streep in it though. So it can fuck off.

Reegs: I've got a couple more. I was gonna mention the largely unpredictable James Cameron disaster romance Titanic was the biggest movie ever made for its day. It is suitably long. I have to say I found it really easy to predict what was going to happen. So.

Sidey: today, actually it was today at work. My colleague likes to listen to Virgin radio in the morning, and then by think this actually was BBC radio two, which I wouldn't normally criticize, but they played the fucking Celine Dion. That's why? Cause there was a news story. Do you, have you had this, the guy that legally changed his name to Celine Dion? So he was a huge fan. He is a huge fan of Celine Dion, but he got pissed off at new years. And while he was shit faced, he went online and legally got them. Done to change his name to slender. So because of that was just, they played the fucking song from Titanic and they pipe, but didn't, he fucking turn off halfway through.

They played the whole fucking thing. I hate it. It's so bad that Elliot Smith and killed himself over it. Cause he'd lost. He was nominated the, that year for miss misery, which is the theme song in Goodwill hunting. that lost out best song to this. I'm pretty sure that's why he killed

Reegs: He did have other issues early at Smithfield. He

Sidey: possibly, but this is probably the straw that broke the camel's back. I nearly killed myself about it.

 Reegs: Two more and then I'll shut up godfather part two,

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Which is both. That rare thing that it is both better than the original and longer the second one, probably not quite so prestigious. Great. And

Sidey: minutes longer

Reegs: yeah, and Spartacus, which is a great, fantastic movie. And it's got a little bit of everything in it.

Fighting civil rights, analogies gay, gay buff guys, homosexual illusions. Yeah. And it's obviously a Stanley Kubrick.

Howie: illusion. Is that like a penis once it's there? It disappears

Sidey: Riggs book, the wrong magician for kids. Probably one time

Howie: look

into, he did. He got stuck in the cupboard with him looking into my eyes, not around the eyes. Look into the eyes, not around the eyes where my trousers gone.

Sidey: I started watching arrested development again a couple of weeks ago. Have you ever seen that? Joe  is bought a new, the very first one he's bought a new sort of set up for an, I keep saying trick. It's not a trick and it's an illusion of tricks. Something or just somebody who is little kids fucking brilliant.

Yeah, I've got a few others just to rattle through the right stuff you see in that one,

Reegs: Yep.

Sidey: all the test pilots for the mercury program. Really, really good clear patcher, which is Epic. Uh, Probably the most is coming out. It's the most ethic of all epics I would suggest. And finally, No penultimate dances with wolves, which just four minutes shy of four hours with S definitely not as much dancing as I was led to believe.

And one that I've yeah. One that I've not seen, but I would really like to see, but I dunno if I could, it sounds like it'd be, probably have to break it up into about five chunks. Is inland empire, the David

Reegs: David Lynch one is that like 11 hours or something?

Sidey: no, it's three hours, 17, but. I don't think anyone knows what the fuck's going on. Even for David Lynch's is supposed to be fucking out there.

And I do like him, but I think this one is it's just going to have to be one that you, you know, going in, you're not going to fucking clear well scandal. And so I think that's why I've not watched it yet, but I do want to, I do want to see it just to see how fucking weird it can be.

Reegs: Mm. Hmm. Yeah. Great.

 Howie: My last one is the almighty Ben Hur,

Reegs: Yes.

Howie: which is I had it read it's three hours, 44. We are chatting Huston,

Reegs: And the pod racing scenes in star Wars are deliberately based on the Ben Hur races. Yeah.

Howie: I

saw

Sidey: Rolex or something in better?

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: The other day again, down a YouTube rabbit hole. If we're talking about the Phantom menace, a load of people, FX specialists were given the chance to turn star Wars Phantom menace into an 18 certificate film.

And it's quite funny. So there's a

Reegs: I've seen that where they're like the member, dismembering people, D members.

Howie: the you

the really lovable character jar jar, a jar jar Binks, where he fucks around with the engine at the start of the pod race. And I think the Spanish gives me a bit of an electric shock.

They get it. So he actually gets mulched into the fucking pod machine and is eviscerated everywhere. And it's like ask one of them, but it's a, yeah. Again, a YouTube

Sidey: I saw, I saw a different one where they they'd edited it down. So it was just talk about the trade Federation. So it was all. It was about four or five minutes of just, just politics and no action. So which actually made it better.

Howie: Yeah. Not surprising.

Sidey: shall we then carve this into a list of four? Well, that means we're going to have to come to a consensus on what rigs Chuck one at.

Reegs: Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson.

Howie: Oh, go for the year in factor of Avengers. Endgame,

Sidey: I will go for now, then now there now though  I'll go for the Wolf of wall street.

Howie: Oh.

Reegs: yeah, yeah. We needed to have

Howie: for it. I think we should go for an Epic, like a clear patch or

Sidey: they're all, they're all pretty modern films we should

Reegs: Ben Hur. I'm up for Ben Hur or pocalypse now it's not old enough. Is it

Sidey: I think that's really only a technicality as well.

Reegs: seven samurai? It's a good one. Spartacus.

Sidey: Well, what's it going to pay then?

Howie: I'll go clear, Patrick, as you normally, I quite liked, I forgot

Reegs: all right. Clear Patrick coming out. Yeah.

Sidey: Cool. So that gives us the top four of Magnolia Avengers end game Wolf of wall street and Cleopatra.

Reegs: our main feature this week was your , choice Sidey. And I do wish Dan was here to talk about it because I think I'd really enjoy him fumbling about with the title over and over again. What, what was the movie we watched?

Sidey: it was the personal history of David Copperfield, the twin T 19 or 2020, probably trait I think trait 19 Armando Iannucci joint. I. Pick base because it's so unlike anything I would generally watch. So I wanted to try and broaden my horizons a bit, a bit more. Well I think I've got three broad scope of films I watched by Barry rarely we'd watch a sort of period piece.

So in that sense, it's definitely, it's out of my comfort zone.

Howie: you have a lack of bonnets in your film

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So it was, that was the primary sort of motivation for choosing this one, this, and also I, I'm a big fan of our mandate in each sheet. He's very, very clever guy and

Howie: of it. Isn't he?

Sidey: it's the thick of it. He's wasted out Monday and it should show it.

I think he did the Friday night, armistice years back on devastate,

Reegs: Nathan barley.

Sidey: It's involved with Adam Partridge and all that sort of stuff. So the death of Stalin as well, fucking brilliant. So absolutely unbelievable track records. That that was another big draw to get me into watching this effectively, this is.

The story of David Copperfield, but told in a it's a brief telling sort of a re-imagining there's, there's quite a few changes to,

Reegs: what Dickens his books are always so enormous. There's no way you could adopt them

Sidey: the bigger than that rakes.

Reegs: yeah, exactly.

Sidey: So there were some, some key changes to that. It's quite difficult to sort of walk through the plot because it does, it kind of jumps around a little bit. It

Reegs: is there anybody, is anybody here at Dickens purist because I'll hold my hands up and

Sidey: read this.

Reegs: no. And I've only ever read one Dickens book, which I had to, which was great expectations. And it was actually really good. And I still remember it really well, but, but by and large, I don't know anything. So when it started and David Copperfield was dev Patel. I had to look around the room bearing in mind, my wife is she's got an English degree from a considerably decent university and she went to Cambridge. So I kind of had to sit there going, Oh yeah, that's cool. I always knew David Copperfield was an Indian guy. I mean, I thought he was a better magician. Than anything else, but,

Howie: Yeah. You only knew him from making the statue of Liberty disappear. Didn't

Reegs: yeah, exactly.

Sidey: He

did take his, he did take his name from this character.

Reegs: did he really? So,

Howie: Charles Dickens took his name from a 20th century. Magician. Fuck us. Insightful. I give him

Reegs: I thought the. Casting, which I think is probably worth just talking about straight away. It just totally took me out of the movie because they didn't know the source. And I had no idea what was going on with the casting. And it is different if he's Indian as a character, rather than just on screen, it makes you think that it took me about 40 minutes of wrestling with that whole idea.

So for the listeners this is a effectively a colorblind casting so that

Sidey: well that's yeah, that's a new term for me, but I discovered that obviously, but I'm reading about this, that they, you know, that is the thing it's kind of blank cards away. Just, I don't know how well that works the other way though, because then you get accused of whitewashing.

Reegs: Yeah, well, it doesn't work the other way, but then nobody is saying that, you know, it's

Sidey: No, no, I'm all for it. I thought it was really good

Reegs: It's still people of color, you know, and other minorities that struggle to get roles in film and TV and theater and stuff.

Howie: The the weirdest argument. And I saw her in line about that, which was just what you just just broached. There was someone said, I think it's absolutely rubbish to do this a colorblind casting, because how would the film Django work if you had white papers and you just go for fuck's sake, he fucking morons, but that's what you're up against with people.

Reegs: Do I think it really does work really well in this, but it's only after you've come to the understanding that that's what it is. So you know that the main character David Copperfield is dev Patel. He's Indian. Dickins a product of his time would have almost certainly been an unapologetic, racist and vocal about civilizing, the Indian native.

So he wouldn't have been Indian in the book, but It's not out of the, I don't think he lost anything by being an Indian actor to the character of, and I think that is generally what happens, although it is jarring when one of the characters introduces his mother and he's Caucasian and his mother is black and I was still, and then somebody else introduces their father.

It turns out to be Benedict Wong who, you know, and you're just like,

Sidey: A drunk. He was called a I, well, you had it with David Copperfield, Copperfield himself. His mother was obviously white and later on his girlfriend fiance.

Reegs: Nothing weird about that.

Sidey: yeah, it wasn't strange in any way. Did you realize that Harry?

Howie: Yeah,

Reegs: same actress he played, his mother played his wife.

Howie: Well. I just thought that side, he had written the script here and he was going to go back to 1965 and fuck her. And

Sidey: It would have been fine. It would have been fine in that case.

Reegs: Okay. So that's the casting thing done. So it's a very eclectic looking and sounding cast and it is actually an absolutely amazing cast

Howie: Yeah it is

Reegs: One of the best cars of any movie, I think I've ever seen.

Howie: Oh, I was gonna say he throw the names. You can throw at it. Peter Capaldi Hilari, Tilda, Swinton, Ben Whishaw poor white house.  as we've said you've obviously got dev Patel Yeah. Oh, there was somebody

Reegs: had victim Maguire. Do you remember victim McGuire? He was critical. He was Jack Boswell in bread.

Sidey: One of the favorite bits of time because I'm a bit of a nerd for this sort of thing is I would like to go through and say, Oh, that sounds good. That sounds like we were watching it as a family, all of us. And when they went to the upside down boat

Reegs: Where the lobster people were.

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah Malik, my daughter said, Oh, look, it's Paul.

And she recognized Paul White house. And I was like, yeah, she's actually she's. Yeah. She recognized it from Paul and Bob's fishing show. I was quite pleased about that.

Howie: I thought that was really nice. That was almost like I'm dropping into a CBBs program that when you saw it was like old Jack's boat, the whole magical seaside village. It was really weird. I just liked it. I really did like it, but it just seemed to be like, Oh, it just dropped into another world here.

 Reegs: Yeah, so terrific cast, if a little confusing, I guess one day we'll be able to have a film cast like this and you won't even think about it, but for me it certainly was jarring and made me question, but maybe that's what it's supposed to do, because obviously if he, if he was Indian, if the mother was black, if I think there was a scene where a guy only had one arm and I was thinking.

If these are important character traits. Yeah. Anyway, one day we won't think about it probably, but right now I did 

Howie: I was aware of the casting before the film and I was aware of the whole idea behind it and. I have to say I wasn't jarred, but I did go, Oh, that's quite obviously, because they're just picking the best actors for that. And it's a very I'm I'm right on.

I'm PC to say it, but I genuinely, it took a couple of minutes of just going. Oh yeah. And you just have to how can I describe it? It can, it can become confusing. I suppose, if you normally go, Oh, that's clearly such and such his daughter, because she looks like her, whereas they were just mixing everybody up.

So you couldn't see any, when a new character was introduced, they had to be very clear as to who that character was and their relationships within you. Couldn't just go, I guess, that's his kids, which is maybe that's a

Sidey: Well, I, I didn't know the story at all in terms of, I D I hadn't read the book. I wasn't, other than a pure, like headline thing. If Dave Cooper, I don't know anything about it. So I couldn't tell you this character in the book did this, and it doesn't happen in the film or that this person's the mother.

And that says son, and he does acts in the film. I, I, I wouldn't have known that going into it. So it was all completely fresh to me and the casting. Because of the guests, because I didn't have any pre conceived notion of it. I was completely fine with the casting and the way it was like you say, hi, it's just like, this is a really talented actor.

I want to play this part. Boom. They red not, Oh, this person has to be white and have one arm because of whatever it was just, that's just cost great people because it's going to be a great ensemble piece and it's all going to work.

Howie: There wasn't enough gingers.

Sidey: I'm happy with that fucking less judges the

Reegs: Tilda Swinton is ginger isn't she?

Howie: No, she's a

Sidey: Yeah, but I think they like bleached her hair. So she was a blonde in

Reegs: And it had Gwendolyn Christie and as well.

Sidey: Oh, don't even mention her fucking hell. She was hateable in

Howie: Oh, I love her a lot. I think she's

Sidey: I was fucking in rice. We actually turned off at this point because when he. What they called it, the, the mudstones when they, when he marries David's mother and, and takes him upstairs to give him a beating my messages, like, nah, turn off with no

Reegs: Yeah, that's too

Sidey: with I think my daughter would have been okay with it, to be honest.

Reegs: She could relate to it with our own thrashings.

Sidey: Yeah, I would just say, this is what's going to happen to you if you don't stop fucking time the line.

Howie: Fucking

Sidey: we, we did, we did turn off and then uh, the, the bit, I really, I was just fucking, you know, I it's just because it's so well, Portrayed on the screen.

It's when they go to the factory and say, your mother's not, well, actually she fucking dead. And he's like, Oh, you know, obviously fucking devastated. And then it's like, I mentioned the funeral and she with a fucking lights, smug fucker, look in a fight, says I was last week. You didn't, you know, you obviously like we didn't invite you.

Didn't tell you about it. And I was like, Oh man, I should have fucking ration into screen. Fucking cute. She, she was awful. That woman fucking awful brilliantly played brilliantly. Really done.

Howie: It helps that she's very physically imposing, which I mean, she's like,

well

Sidey: got stature.

Howie: about six foot and she's on her. And she clearly dominates, donate to the relationship

Reegs: Oh, yeah. I'd let it beat the shit out of me here.

Sidey: I think you have a choice.

Howie: come up to a waste wouldn't you

Reegs: If I'm lucky. If I'm lucky from here probably.

Sidey: So the film is effectively David Copperfield telling the story of his life to date. That's how it starts with him on stage about, and, and we see that throughout the film, he keeps notes of all these memorable things that people say or things that happen. And he's got this huge sort of trove of scrap pieces of paper that he's keeping to tell these stories.

Reegs: So Copperfield is brought up chiefly by his nursemaid petty. Then his widowed mother gets married, as you said, society to the hateful Mister murdered stone. And his sister becomes housekeeper. Did, was it just me being twisted and spending too much time round DSID or were they hinting that they were like banging

Sidey: Ah, yeah, I thought they were, there was some sort of incestuous thing going on. Cause they were too, they were too fucking close. I didn't, I thought, I thought they had just married him off. I don't know whether I've just reading too much into it, but yeah, I thought there was some sort of sinister undertones there.

Reegs: Cool. Did not just me. So then poor David Copperfield is sent to a series of different places. Basically. He goes to the upturned boat that you were talking about with the lobster people, for reasons that I didn't follow at the time, and then a giant hand smashed through the roof for. Other reasons that I didn't follow at the time as well.

Then he goes to the bottling factory. I'm not what were they doing in there?

Howie: well. He lives with

Sidey: it was booze. Wasn't

Howie: Yeah

He lives with Mrs. Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCall, who's played by Peter Capaldi, a brilliant turn as a drunk, desperate down and out, but with a heart of gold. Oh, Goldmark, dare and it's.

Sidey: this bit really felt like it could have actually been a play the way it was done when he, but he first goes to Mr.  house and there. That by the window or someone's trying to reach in and grab something and he's moving the clock around. And then somewhere between one to the other, it felt like a stage production being filmed, you know, the way it was done, which is, which is the whole point, because that's what David Caulfield is doing.

He's on stage telling the story really very well put together. And this there's a lot of sequences which we'll get onto about how they move the locations

Reegs: very

Sidey: Which is just a genius really, really, really clever.

 Reegs: then Copperfield sort of goes up and down the social ladder basically. Being a Dickens novel, they're nearly all obsessed by class. I'm led to believe. And this is obviously a big talking point. How many times am I going to say? Obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously.

Yeah. So he ends up. After the bottle factory ends up at school. He ends up in a law chambers and he ends up at the home of his art Betsey . Trotwood played by Tilda Swinton.

Howie: With Mr. Dick.

Reegs: who indulges her lodger. Mr. Dick Hugh Laurie, who I thought was super

Sidey: to be varying levels of X interest in that household. There was obviously the donkey thing where they keep trying to

Howie: Shoot them

Sidey: these donkeys away from their lawn which was sort of quite funny in itself, but then to Laurie who it. It's a brilliant sort of comedic actor anyway. And he was fantastic and they're sort of playing it straight as this really kind of mentally disturbed

Reegs: where he believes he can receive the brain. The thoughts of

Sidey: It's all the, all the trouble thoughts of Charles the first or second. I can't remember what it was. Who had obviously been his head cut off.

Howie: It'd been executed.

Sidey: he, was now receiving his, his disturbed thoughts and were causing him some difficulties, which he resolves by keeping notes and putting them on a kite.

Reegs: Yes. Sailing them away,

Howie: Yes

Sidey: And then I

Reegs: while the beautiful idea. I thought.

Sidey: yeah. And then, but then he just, he just carried that kite with him forevermore. So it was quite funny just every time he saw him, he was just clutching his coat. It was really

Howie: we were, we were during this time whilst David Copperfield is working. That's the, what was the profession that it become and you didn't know what it was.

Sidey: It was some sort of well to do profession when

Howie: Yeah. We come across the most despicable character. Uriah Heep played by

Sidey: Good hack out though

Reegs: cracking Erica.

Yeah

Howie: but he's also

Sidey: the proper pudding bowl, haircut, creepy just

Reegs: I,

Sidey: way he, his body language. And it was brilliant. He at that sort of, so bowed over hunch, look about him, but a sort of slimy, horrible characteristics. Yeah.

Reegs: I think he's

Howie: over humility. Oh yeah, because the term Uriah Heep is the term you're right. Heap is still kind of used by people to describe someone that's overly, overly Not, not very over there over the top with you there. They're not sincere that they'll say a compliment to you. That's just so over the top, but they don't mean it.

They're just using it as a method to, to get their own means, to get wherever they want to go. And he played it brilliantly. He was an awful character. And in this he's basically realized that his boss is partial to a few sharp harps Benedict,

Sidey: yeah, I've been in day one, which we learned this because when he first appears that the answer. GAF, they've got one of those Globes with

Howie: Oh, I have a drinking Globes.

Sidey: the decanter, and they're trying to usher it out of the room without him seeing it. And he can hear the pulse routing and eventually it goes off and it has to happen.

We realized straight from the offer. This guy's an alcoholic which they exploited, obviously right here, we exploits that he is also this sort of social climber, trying to make his way up the ladder, but he's He's embezzling funds. Isn't he

Reegs: He is. Yes. And in fact it turns out he's embezzled specifically from Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie,

Sidey: it's taken the house.

Reegs: taken a house and it ends up that the wealthy Betsy who sponsors David's ascent to being a gentleman. And he ends up living in squalor with her. Mr. Dick. And an assortment of other characters that eventually includes Peter Capaldi and his kids. and who else lives there? I don't know an assortment of people that he's met along the way.

Then of course they do uncover Uriah heaps, embezzlement with the unrequited love that he didn't see right under his nose. Mr. Wakefield Benedict Wong's daughter played by Rosalind. Eylea czar, the daughter, Agnes who uncovers the deceit that then sinks Uriah. Heep.

Sidey: yeah. And all the, while this has been gotten old and. David or Dick, he has got a multitude of names that he goes by this film, Hey, he's been having this romance. And it's, it's all sort of. Fine. But the bit that stands out in my mind is, is when he's he first meets her and he does this weird thing with the Apple tree.

It's so weird. She says something as if it's the dog, doesn't it. She's got this annoying pet dog. And in his attempt to flirt, he says something back. As if it's from the Apple tree and I was sort of cringing and I'm like, God, what's going on. It's like then that sort of first interaction you have when you started to talk to a girl, you

Reegs: Dev Patel's got this kind of goofy charm about him that you totally buy it. And actually that scene doesn't end up being creepy or particularly awkward it's endearing and a bit

Sidey: I thought it started out a bit awkward. I was like, Oh God, but he does. He saves it to me. So it comes back any day. It makes it more sort of cheeky fun rather than sort of cringingly embarrassing. But all the while it's just

Reegs: Well, I was going to say, so the casting of his mother in the app, the same actress he played, his mother is presumably to indicate that he's trying to recreate some Freudian relationship.

Sidey: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, you could see it that way.

Reegs: But he doesn't, luckily for him, he bends her off at the last moment. He realizes as it's sort of in the culmination of the movie, as he decides to,

Howie: be a writer.

Reegs: basically to tell his story in order to make money, to save everyone

Howie: Well, she writes

her

Reegs: not important to the story.

He writes her

Howie: she? Yeah. Well he writes her up because she indicates it to him,

Reegs: Yeah, but he knows it as well.

Howie: Yeah, yeah.

Sidey: there's there's a, there's a subplot of his mate from school who ends up running away with

Howie: one of the

Sidey: the gal from the, from the fish boat, which is quite key. And there's, there's the out say with the rescue. Yeah. And th the main reason I bring that up is because it's actually the way that they transitioned that story is there in that building.

And it sort

of whipped away the whole set as it's like a made out of top all and all of a sudden, and it's whipped away in there somewhere else. When that happened, I was fucking like taken aback, like, wow, that was fucking amazing. The way they did that. And they do,

Reegs: They did it earlier in the movie as well with the it's full of inventive transitions.

Sidey: do some bits with projections on to parts of the set and things like that. It was very creative and very

Reegs: I think if you're going to try and make this or keep it still in the period, but make it except accessible to modern. Viewers, you know, they've got a more modern Britain represented in there by having a more diverse cast. They've got the flashy camera moves that are clever enough to keep you engaged, but not too flashy to distract you from what's happening.

Yeah, very clever.

 I thought dev Patel was really good. I've enjoyed him in his breakthrough role, obviously Slumdog millionaire. I know he got an Oscar nod for lion, which is a movie that I haven't seen, but he was also in the newsroom, which is terrific HBO series that we watched. And I think he's, he's a good actor.

Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah, he's very good there. I I'd look at a metrics for them. They're all over the shop. They're quite low. I mean, it's 6.4 on IMDV is low. 91% on rotten tomatoes. So good, good on there, but Metacritic and Google, like mid seventies. So it's a bit kind of patchy the way this was received by, by the audience.

Howie: distribution though came at the end of 2019. So would have seen only a fair or small cinema audience. And now it's gone straight onto Amazon just less than a year.

Sidey: Well, that, that leads in quite nicely into the budget for it was about 15 and a half million dollars. Do you reckon it won or lost at the box office?

Howie: Pretty, almost equal,

Sidey: sum though. 15,

Howie: it's cause it's it's

Sidey: nearly equal 14, just over 14 mil.

Howie: it's

Sidey: Joe, I think is a shame

Howie: yeah, but yeah suspect that Amazon must pay a value towards it and it has, it's one of the ones that's been trending on Amazon prime at the moment. So I wonder how that works.

Sidey: it does, but don't know,

Howie: it's interesting if Amazon

Sidey: but like we discovered last week that the budget doesn't then include the marketing fee on top of that. So. It's probably needs to go some way to make its money back. And I hope it does find a good audience cause it certainly deserves to let's round it up then. How are you?

Where are you not

Howie: yeah, I'd watched this about three weeks before you chose it. I don't know, because I'd heard the hype and I thought it would be relatively bizarrely, good seasonal type film, you know, of the Christmas Carol esque, traditional type of story. And my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 Reegs: this is a difficult one for me because I really like Armando Iannucci. I really like a lot of the actors, the direction is brilliant. I think it's suffers from having too many eccentric characters, being eccentric as their only sort of character definition. And despite it being optimistic, And no, I mean, discussing loads of things that I'm kind of interested in and themes I'm interested in.

I was kind of bored when I watched this, but I think that's probably more about me than it is about the movie. I would definitely watch it again because there's so much there to enjoy if you're a fan of cinema anyway. But no, I wasn't captivated whilst I was watching this, but I would watch it again.

 Sidey: I have probably enjoyed talking about it more than I did enjoy watching the film. I have to say that while there were lots of elements to the film that were interesting or exciting, or, or just, just the way that they did certain technical aspects, like we've talked about the transition from one scene to another, or, you know, the casting of the rest of it.

I still. I just don't find myself that take it in by bees period settings. That just, it's just a, something that is just doesn't really float my boat. That being said, the performances in it were excellent. And if this is the sort of film that you would be drawn to that you'll certainly enjoy this one.

I think it's just not something that particularly does it for me.

 Kate Stevie.

Reegs: did you choose for a Sidey?

Sidey: Well, I delve back into my daughter's formative years cause we watched this one a little while ago. It's called tumble leaf and it is on Amazon prime.

Reegs: No, my wife reliably informs me that my little one is watched this before as well. Because this is for younger kids, isn't it?

Sidey: although I, it says preschool in the, all the bumps, but I think my, I can't remember how old my daughter was when she met him. She was about three or four, maybe. I don't know. it's the story of fig the Fox who is blue for some reason. And he goes on various different adventures around his local shipwreck, I

Reegs: Well, that's where he lives. Isn't it much like in personal history of

Sidey: he lives on a shipwrecks, Yeah. And the, the, a, it does sort of segue quite nicely actually effectively it does various sort of things around the place, but the crux of the whole thing is about, he learns things through play and through exploring. And that's, I think the message, the key message that he's trying to put across to kids is learn through play or explore and figure things out.

And he says quite often Rumble leaf tumble. If I figured out or some shit, I can't remember exactly how he says it, but that's his catchphrase. I figured it out. And so he's trying to encourage kids to figure out, should have asked me why I fucking

Reegs: love this though. It's an introduction to problem solving what a great idea, because you know, the character comes across a problem and then they try and resolve it themselves. And I'm really hoping in the spirit of this, that my four year old learns to drive the car so she can take herself to nursery. That'd be very helpful.

Sidey: they had to figure out from South because there's almost no adult in this.

Reegs: Yeah,

Howie: There's a crap at the start of every episode

Reegs: it's not an adult crap. Is it?

Howie: I think he's, I think

Sidey: Well, we get onto that because I have some questions about it. I think the only adults there's a hedge. Or is it hedges? Hedges? Mother is the adult hedgehog and there's might be one other, but the chickens that live above him above fig might be adults

Reegs: sort of like a race of slave. So aren't they, because they have to tend the gardens and Kirk

  Sidey: That figs eyes were really low on his face. Did

Reegs: no, I didn't notice that, but it is really quite beautiful to look at. It has to be said it's it's stop motion animation. And it is really stunning colors and design.

Sidey: it's proper stop motion as well. I did read when I was. Sniffing around online about this. Then someone did this big, long spiel about why they loved it and how great it was and how amazing it was for their kids. And the kids loved it. And one of the animators it's sort of seen this and chimed in and said, Oh, this really is a fucking labor of love for us.

So it's really gratifying when people say this sort of stuff that, you know, they've enjoyed it. It, it is like you say, visually it's fucking spectacular. It's really, really well done.

Howie: Yeah, my kids really enjoyed it. I know they are not the target market because it's for a younger audience, but we watched the episode over T and they liked it. They said, yeah, we remember watching this a couple of times. They, they both. Character sentiments that you did, which was, it had a lot of high quality about it.

It didn't seem like a

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah,

Howie: own series. Like we've mentioned about, for instance, the Netflix cartoons, which although effective, they are rushed and they are churned out there seemed like you said to be a labor of love. It had some quality about it. It had some wholesomeness. The stories were problem solving they're educational.

They had an element of fun and they had a nice continuity to it with the star where the crab finds something looks at, it thinks what the fuck is this? And then chucks it into the treasure chest and then jumps into a hole and pisses off. And then they get a little alert or was it a flag or something that says there's something new in the finding box or something?

Sidey: My message is spot that she's. So every single episode and there's two, so it's 20,

Howie: Yeah. There's loads.

There's

Sidey: odd minutes, but it's, but it's two episodes in that 23 minute chunk and it always starts with the crab finding something. He'd say he checks his treasure chest, or they'll be something in there and it'll take what he wants.

And he fucks the rest off into

Reegs: finding place. It's like a mind palace. Isn't it really.

Sidey: yeah. When it lands in there, it triggers the.

Howie: Porno alarm, because

Sidey: rudder, the Dutch rudder on the back of the ship rattles and that, cause that's got a bit of rope tied to a tree with some bells on it. And that's how fake knows that there's something in the fireplace.

And my Mister straight away went where the wind would just blow that and fucking rattled them. Right.

Howie: killing

killing the joy in the room, killing the joy in the room. Say when it gets older, he opens up that trashed. It's got like a couple of men, only some old Melbourne lights.

Reegs: Kind of special, bro.

Howie: Yeah. Like I'm his mum from the sixties pants that he sniff

Reegs: I know, but if it's stuff that a crap finds on the beach, it's going to be like a used condom. Yeah,

Sidey: Yeah, syringe.

Howie: trainer, one

Sidey: did anyone else? I thought that maple was a Fox as well for a long

Reegs: she wasn't. What was she?

Sidey: No, she's a bear

Howie: Oh, awesome.

Sidey: bear of some kind.

 they can't mate.

Reegs: That is one question answered then. Isn't it let's be honest.

Howie: just have a hook. Is it Fox just to have a hook at the end of their penis or is that wolves?

Reegs: no it's cats. I think they have a bar at the end of their bin.

Sidey: No, they barbed. Yeah, dicks.

Howie: yeah, he couldn't have known, couldn't have had section of a player.

Sidey: and there's only one way to find out. I do have other questions about the, if universe.

Reegs: are they?

Sidey: Well where all the adults for

Howie: dead

Sidey: Yeah. I think that there's a very strong possibility that there's been some sort of nuclear Holocaust here.

Reegs: Okay.

Sidey: these are actually, these are mutations much like in Keepa and the age of the wonder piece, the crab is clearly a fishermen. He has fishermen's overalls on and he has some sort of mutation on his arm that has caused it. Has led him to replace his arm with a wooden

Howie: Sorry, it's funny. You should think of this nuclear apocalypse because looking through the episodes, there is an episode later on called glow in the dark sleepover. Well,

Sidey: Yeah. Telling it.

Howie: it's all Lincoln up. Now. There, each of them have got a uranium stack and then we're like playing with it. And it's, as a result of the fallout, the trees got a bit Brown, but it's grown lots and lots of extra branches.

This, this, this, this.

Sidey: They all, they all speak

Reegs: They.

Sidey: all the difference, all the different species of animal, all speak English. And yet we also have this classic cartoon or kids

Reegs: Where the chicken Kong

Sidey: of the. Yeah, the younger ones can't talk. which is strange, but also if you watch some of the other episodes, there are a lot of ruins around the place ruins of

Reegs: So what you're thinking here, post-apocalyptic future or.

Sidey: it's a post as opposed to pocket Dick. Yeah. Future something's happened. And these are not necessarily just animals that have been you know, personified for the sake of making these are mutants. These are

Reegs: Oh, so this is mutated. All right. Okay.

Sidey: I think it, I think it's human animal hybrids that we're seeing here.

Brick or Brack mammals, if you like.

Reegs: I do like, and that would explain why the Fox is blue.

Sidey: exactly, because foxes aren't blue eyed. I knew that before I watched this,

Howie: he's showing off.

Sidey: also have a ferry that this is a in the night guard and crossover

Reegs: Go on.

Sidey: because the, the ship. That he lives in, that was Eagle pickles ship,

Reegs: That makes total sense.

Sidey: which has hit an iceberg or something has caused it. That's why I go pickle is now in the life raft, having his fever dreams of in the night

Reegs: brilliant. That is brilliant.

Sidey: And this dish, the ship has then made its way to land beached itself there. And they've now

Howie: spelt it's radioactive load.

Sidey: Yeah, it's now it's a, it's the home of this meeting.

Fox human

Reegs: This is Canada now.

Sidey: I don't know if necessarily the writers had intended all this, but it seems pretty clear to me when you analyze it. That's that's what's happened. I mean, in spite of all of that, this is a really fucking good show for

Reegs: yeah, I liked this, this story. So kind of simple but charming. The two that we watched had nuanced take on things and also, you know, just a slight unusual. Not edge, but just a different take on the world and you get to explore problem solving. What's not to like about these things. And it's seriously stunning to look at.

Howie: Yeah,

Sidey: It, it definitely has the production. I would say, trying to think of all the stuff we've watched. I'd say the production on this, the production by this is better than anything we've seen

Reegs: Yes, maybe. Yeah.

Sidey: It's a bowl claim. I'm trying to fake it just quickly. You have other stuff that we watched, but there's other stuff that we've watched.

It it's been

Howie: Clarence

Sidey: it's

Yeah, but things that have been done in a way that they're able, you mentioned it before, how, whether we're able to do them quickly and get the next series out. Whereas this is better, a bit more painstaking. You can tell that the people making it a part of actually really enjoyed making it.

So let's wind it up before we get fucking kicked off the internet. Again, Howie

 Howie: Yes, I was, the kids really enjoyed it too.

Reegs: Yeah, it's for younger viewers, but I definitely enjoyed it.

 Sidey: Same hair. I watched it youngster go and revisited it and just remind myself, it's stunning to look at with a good message for younger kids. So check it out.   Radio. That was a fun if somewhat challenging session to record because of the fucking internet. Howie, I believe that you are nominating for next week. How have we got another Brian rock on it and was

Howie: I hope so what I've done is I've I've scoured all the various online and offline sites and then found out which ones were free. So the one I'm going for is the film is going to be three billboards outside, ebbing, Missouri, which isn't the location of your nearest dogging spot. And the kid

Sidey: that available on streaming

Howie: think

it's on prime. I

Sidey: that

Howie: it's on Amazon prime and I think this one was on Netflix. And I have disclosure watch this because Sunday was killing me. It's a kid's one and it's called we can be heroes and it's actually a film, unfortunately.

Reegs: About David Bowie?

Howie: now.

Sidey: Is it Robert Rodriguez?

Howie: It's no, it's

Reegs: Yes, isn't it? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah.

Howie: It's called the dude from the Mandalorian in it

Reegs: Pascal

Howie: Pascal. And it's got some other people in as well. 

Sidey: Oh coast. No, it's a one man

Howie: no, no. It's it's it's load

Sidey: five.

Howie: top five years. Worst special effects.

Reegs: should be decent now.

Sidey: Okie dokie. Let me just write that down. So it's great.

Reegs: It's really super

Sidey: cool. That was good. Yeah, I know. It'd people love that. Cool. Data quality recommendations are I'm looking forward to getting stuck into that. I will try and piece this fucking nightmare together. Hope hopefully Dan's back in full effect for next week and we can have some more dad jokes. So all that remains is to say, Sidey is signing out.

Howie: goodbye.