Point of View - Ep. 1: The Curse of Franchise Media, Megalopolis, The Substance and AI

Transcript

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[Music]
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all right K everybody welcome to this first episode of point of view um this
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is a new podcast where we uh talking about film talking about what's coming up in the cinemas and on streaming as
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well as talking about what's going on out there in the world of film uh my name is Tom Austine I'm a filmmaker and
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a Critic uh I am very happy to be here with uh Luke uh can you introduce
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yourself my friend yeah uh my name's Luke Murray and I'm the sales manager for madman New Zealand so we're going to
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have a new guest every month on this podcast uh from the world of film um
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we're super happy to have Luke here mad man is obviously one of the major Distributors of independent cool Cinema
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in New Zealand um we're very very happy to have you here thank you very much for being our first guest um um so we will
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start by talking about uh what is coming up in the cinema in New Zealand in
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September so we're recording this uh mid August and we have a little bit of kind
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of um seeing the lay of the land coming up in the next in the next month and so
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we will start by talking about um a film that has a sequel now called beetle
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juice Beetle Juice um I'm not listen I
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love the first Beetle Juice I'm great I'm a big fan of that one I'm not a huge fan of Tim Bon he's patchy he's yeah
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he's patchy um his style has never been my kind of cup of tea I suppose but um
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he will be releasing this new film Beetle Juice Beetle juu which is obviously a sequel to the major Mega hit
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from the ' 80s ' 80s yeah yeah and um it's a film that
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reunites a whole lot of the car of the stars from the original so we've got Michael ke and there obviously we've got
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wiona Ryder um and a whole bunch of new people as well um the trailers
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surprisingly look pretty strong I've got to say that until I saw that trailer I was PR depressed about yeah the whole
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idea of it I was really switched off but yeah you know but the trailer is very good yeah and it looks like it does have
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this kind of um fty to the original yeah uh style there's a lot of practical
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effects yeah um which I mean that's exactly what you want yeah and I I've been reading about um what Michael
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Keaton has been saying which is that he was very adamant that there he wouldn't
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be in the film too much um but I think people forget kind of like with
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something like um Hannibal elor and the Silence of the Lambs that uh Beetle Juice isn't actually in the
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film a huge amount of time original so the fact that he pushed to have only
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limited appearance in the film yeah um I feel like it boats well yeah I think so
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um just everything about this feels good yeah I mean and I imagine it's probably
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going to make a butt ton of money as well well yeah I mean you know I'm certainly going to go yeah like pretty
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much everyone my age is going to go they were like kids when they came out yeah exactly it does it kind of keys into
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that Nostalgia thing but maybe uh in a way that's a little bit
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um uh not doesn't seem so much like a cash grab I mean it did at first but now that I'm watching it it feels maybe a
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little know it kind of feels like a like a minor version of that Top Gun sequel exactly yeah yeah which is uh and I
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think you could probably say the same for Twisters that was earlier this year as I guess they're finding as much as I hate the term they
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finding a IP that they can uh reinvest in but in a way that maybe feels like it
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at least uh it's not overdone it's not oversaturated yeah I mean you know the
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Twister thing was interesting because twister didn't really I don't remember that being like a gigantic F moment
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maybe it was I I don't remember it being so no I mean I was I was sort of talking
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about this the other day I feel like they uh there's this general idea at the
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moment that everything that comes out with a major budget has to have some sort of um reliable
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past uh reverence and we're running out of titles right um but there are a few
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things like Top Gun like twister where there's enough of a oh I remember that I
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feel good about it that they're willing to go back and try it again um it's just about finding those ones I guess um and
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Twisters you know it wasn't an incredible film but it was enjoyable it was it was serviceful yeah yeah I'm kind
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of jealous of people in um the US who get to go watch it through 40x to get
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pummeled and rain on and that kind of thing we don't have a lot of that here unfortunately no no no another film
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we've got coming up in September is uh speak no evil which is an adaptation of
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the film from uh Scandinavia some place in Scandinavia I'm not entirely sure of
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the location my God I'm going to look that up it is a film that was made uh it's a Danish film um
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and this new uh remake is an American
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uh re-approach I guess and it's a film
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uh that's the original is a horror film about uh the links that people will go
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not to upset other people I suppose um it's got this uh family who kind of
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interact with another family and have this kind of nice kind of um connection
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then they go and visit them and slowly but surely they start to realize that
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all is not right in this family but they don't want to um appear rude or anything
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like that and the lengths of that lead to some very horrible results um this
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version has uh James McAvoy in the lead who is a one of our most
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intriguing uh actors of his generation I think because he uh uh he's never really
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gone in the direction that I've expected him to go in no you know this is a guy who um became something of a major star
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after appearing as Mr tness in uh the LI the witch in The Wardrobe yeah I mean
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he's done a lot of good stuff he has done a lot of good stuff I mean he's very good in atonement he's very good in a whole range of um um British Cinema
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from 2010s and so on yeah I remember he was there was a moment where he was kind of being touted as a new action hero he
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was in wanted um but more recently I think especially since splits and glass came
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out he's kind of reemerged as the uh uh
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as kind of like a dark villainous character actor I mean who
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can push himself to to kind of unsettling lengths right well yeah and
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looking at this I mean sco McNary is in it he's another one that's like he could like I don't know why he's not a lead
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yeah I mean he's a he's a great consistent character actor in a sense yeah and um yeah it's a good it's a
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really solid cast I mean I I can't say that I'm hugely excited about the
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prospect of taking a film that is already well regarded but has subtitles
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and then reinterpreting a couple of years ago too it's like why why are we dipping this all the time and reinterpreting it in a way that I mean
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when it becomes Americanized so so often it loses so much of its age um there are
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very few films that you can say that are remade from Scandinavian films that
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actually are improvements yeah exactly exactly or any any other place really I
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mean you could probably make a case for something like um The Departed and infernal Affairs well that's a big I
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mean think it's downgrade as far as you think it's a big downgrade I do okay all right we can discuss this offline I mean
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you know the it's just the overt use of the rats at the end yeah that's pretty bad I it's
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bad um Okay so we've got speak not evil and then we have a trio of um children's
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films that are releasing towards the end of the end of the year and they all are kind of coming out at the same time it's
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a little bit uh puzzling uh but we've got uh the wild robot which is an
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adaptation of A really lovely children's book um we have uh Harold and the Purple
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Crayon which has been a very uh an enormous flop in the US um and we have
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Transformers one which is an animated uh Transformers movie which is actually kind of refreshing I say it's an
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interesting one I I mean I do remember really liking the 80s Transformers yeah exactly it's kind of hardening Mi of
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there yeah um I mean the Transformers films in general the Transformers uh
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stable has kind of lost a little bit of its yeah uh cultural relevance in recent
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years I mean the one that came out last year I think um landed with thud I mean
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it didn't really it was it was not especially I mean the like an animated
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trans and kind of like in the same way that I I I just kind of F that animated Lord of the Rings F later in the year
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they just kind of feel like they should be going straight to streamers yeah I know it's a that one's called The War of
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the rorm and I think it focuses on like a small kind of subplot or like a piece
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of history from Middle Earth law which sounds interesting it does sound interesting but I can't foresee I mean
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who knows who knows yeah um I do think it's intriguing that there's an they're approaching it in the style of anime as
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opposed to like traditional Western animation I know it's very strange strange but kind
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of kind of cool I guess we'll see what happens there um but yeah I think the
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wild robot actually looks quite promising um the story itself is very popular it's about a robot who um uh
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wakes up in the woods um all by itself and kind of doesn't know how it got there and and what its purpose was and
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slowly starts to find that um it's it looks I mean from the look of the
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trailer and that kind of thing almost gave me the feeling of something like Where the Wild Things Are or something like that yeah a little bit more offbeat
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a little bit more um less like High color High saturation
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high sugar um content for for uh younger viewers so I think if I was to make a
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call on which one to watch well be that one for it would be that one it certainly wouldn't be Harold and TR
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Crayon with um God's loneliest superhero Zachary L can get in the bin yeah we're not so
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keen on that one so um lots of um really really great stuff coming up this month
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um but I think the one that I am most excited for is megalopolis which we will
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talk about uh after we look at the trailer the film okay so we're going to start uh this uh sigment is talking
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about different trailers that have been releasing this month um we're going to be talking about megalopolis first now
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megalopolis is the new film from Francis for copular it is being released by bad man so we're very happy to have you here
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to talk about this luk um happy to be here me megalopolis is the new film from
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Francis for Copa obviously of uh The Godfather Apocalypse Now brok's Dracula
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uh the conversation the list goes on um it has been the source of uh a lot of
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Buzz a lot of controversy a lot of divisive opinion um it is almost
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entirely self- financed by Francis Ford which is um uh you know kind of
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admirable in its own sense I mean he kind of bet this huge amount from his
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wine Winery Fortune to make this he's rather well off yes um so it's a bit of
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a big gamble but it's actually kind of something that we don't really see these days in the cinema and I'm quite excited to see no it seems like there's a run of
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these too I we've we've had like two of them like we had the cner Horizon yes
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and I loved Horizon I thought it was fantastic yeah I'm excited to see the second part if it ever comes out well I
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I'm hoping it does fingers crossed um but no I mean it's uh I'm fully in
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support of anything that uh features uh a character named wow Platinum played by
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Aubrey Plaza I mean it's a it's it's a weird idea I mean even the idea of them
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having to have an actor come in in the middle to like ask Adam dri a question
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in the cinema for those who don't know there is a moment that has been widely reported from the KH screening where um
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Adam Driver is is speaking on screen and then an actor appears in the cinema a live action actor to ask him questions
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uh I'm not sure it's just it's one question uh but
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um they they kind of do want us to do that okay at the screenings I would love that I think that's great well I mean
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actors are certainly Keen had a few people asking fantastic and I feel like there's I mean another um uh
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elements is that they want to shoot it in they want it to be played exclusively
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on IMAX is that correct not exclusively but we do have IMAX prints yeah oh yes I
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can't wait okay let's watch this trailer now this trailer has caused a lot of controversy in the moments it has
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dropped today um and it is already causing controversy let's watch it and then let's discuss
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[Music]
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when does an Empire die does it collapse in one terrible
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moment no no but there comes a time when his
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people no longer believe in it don't let them now destroy them
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forever ladies and gentlemen and children of all
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ages welcome is this
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Society this this way we're living the only one that's available to
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[Music]
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us we are taking our city [Applause] back and when we ask these questions
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when there's a dialogue about them that basically is a
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[Music]
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Utopia well there you go I mean it is a very powerful really well put together
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trailer except for the fact which is just kind of emerged that it seems like a lot of the quotes from the critics uh
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who are featured at the front of the trailer uh don't appear to be
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real um it's it's bizarre like there are no when I saw
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it I honestly thought they would have been because they seem like things those critics would say it tracks I mean I
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just it just bbbl the Mind does it do they think no one would would check I
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mean I don't know maybe I just maybe they just think it's really funny I mean maybe there's a sort of comedic
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intention there I mean that is potential yeah for sure I mean I kind of think it is actually funny that are like false
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quotes it makes it funnier in a sense absolutely but I'm sure it's going to generate a whole lot of controversy a
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lot of people are speculating that maybe it was they would have put into say a
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jet GPT or an AI model tell us a negative quote about the Godfather from
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Pauling kale or Andrew sarus yeah and uh this is what would have been turned back without the appropriate fact checking
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going in um whether or not that's true I mean the people in the future listening
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to us will know as opposed to us who are just experiencing this right now I mean what this dropped this morning this
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morning and people have already fact check it they have already fact I mean that seems unusual for this time no um
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but you know aside from that uh and I you know it can't really fall to the
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film itself self for whatever blowback this trailer has um the the imagery in
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this looks really really powerful I mean it has been hugely divisive it it it had
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a very mixed reception out of K absolutely um and I mean that is to be
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expected to a degree with copper especially late period cppa um who has made films that have their have their
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cult followings but aren't necessarily as beloved as something like The Godfather I mean yeah i i in the same
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way that we were talking about Burton before you know his later period has been a lot of hit M type stuff yeah
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absolutely um but I think this being such a massive event film there's no denying that it's
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going to be a film that you you talk about it's going to be a film that you
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if you have any kind of investment in in cinema in general I can't see a reason
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not to go and see it yeah it is it is this kind of massive event no matter
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what you make of it no matter if it's the worst thing that has ever been made and I've had a few critics tell me that
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it's one of the worst things they've ever seen I've been Tau that yeah but I mean I will be there no matter what 100%
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And I'm going to go and see it in IMX for sure exactly exactly um now the
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other trailer that we have is for a film that I have seen and it is a film that I did not expect to love but I 100% did it
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is another film being released by mad man uh it is called the substance do you
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want to tell us a little bit about this film sure sure oh my God this film uh this film is actually pretty wild um
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it's a a film by carolene fette um starring Margaret quy and Demi Moore and
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Dennis cage um it's a story of Demi Moore who's an aging um kind of like
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jazz aide person she has a jazz show like like a workout show like um like Jane funder in
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the 70s yeah or what was that Fone with John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis oh
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you know where the the F the famous sort of like like dff of like Jamie Lee Curtis thrusting doing the thrusting
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yeah no um anyway she's she's aging and Dennis Quaid sort of wants to to get rid
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of her and um she finds uh this company who um aort to uh be able to like create
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a better version of yourself very shadowy kind of back alley operation so
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anyway she uh she goes to uh try this out um gets this kit uh injects herself
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with the substance and um yeah a a a
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Margaret quy appears from her and uh we will uh dig into that let's watch the
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trailer first and then we'll dig into that
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have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself
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younger more beautiful more perfect
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[Music]
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pretty girls should always
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[Music]
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smile I just like the sheer amount of RI es like it's like Corine's like hey I
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like The Shining I like Carri I like this film and they are all at play Oh in
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this film which is it's uh it's a big film it's quite long uh it has a great
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cast it is body horror which is not usually a genre which I respond to I
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mean I love something like the fly or the thing but um this is an extremely
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gross film in the best possible way very much is there are bodily fluids there's blood
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there's bones breaking there's it's incredibly intense it's it's such a ride
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and it's it's not like any other film you're going to see it is uh this year it is a film that is completely lacking
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in subtlety there is no subtlety there zero at all um the Dennis Quake
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character but for example who is a studio EXA his name is Harvey yeah um
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there is uh there's there's a recurring kind of visual gag where um the new show
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that Margaret qu's character gets cast in um which is just literally closeups
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of her ass just lwd yeah it's just it's uh very UNS subtle but I I think it's a
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great kind of metaphor for the entire film that a billboard gets built in front of jamy Moore's house that has a
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picture of Mary literally just says new show coming soon no details no Channel
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just new show coming soon I think that really stands in for the whole film um it so if you buy into that you're going
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to have a great time yeah I thought it was um it was so well directed like like
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um K Fier is really just throwing everything at the wall oh yeah and it grows into this massive kind of grank
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kind of um bloody ending is wild wild body horror ending that is just
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absolutely uh bananas I haven't like tracked all of the festival screenings but like I know
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that people were like fainting in Wellington and they like we had reports of people fainting in Oakland fantastic
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so it's uh I know we should provide ambulances these Perhaps Perhaps but um
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I couldn't recommend this movie enough I mean it it completely won me over it is
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it is a film that kind of outstays its welcome in a way that's actually kind of great yeah um it's a film that overdoes
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it in a way that's great like it's like the very very end with the the star yes
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it's just it's it's a kind of weirdly odd thing to do to end it but kind of
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brilliant yeah kind of brilliant um which is kind of how I would describe a lot of this film um uh yeah full
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recommend from me uh well worth going and seeing um and when does that release
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that is the 19th of September
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fantastic we're moving now into talking about uh the news and Screen
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entertainment both here in Alo and Beyond um we'll start kind of very wide
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we'll talk about some of the issues that have been kind of um talked about in the film community in recent times um one
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that has been really interesting to me has been around the release of alien Romulus um which is a film that's uh I
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guess you could describe it as a kind of spin-off sequel SL prequel to all the
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films that are kind of at play in that alien franchise it's directed by FID Alvarez who made it's kind of seems to
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be in the middle of alien and Aliens yeah it takes place between those two points um none of the same characters
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except for one which I'll talk about in a minute yeah that's right yes okay I know what you're doing
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yeah um it is directed by fed Alvarez uh it is who made those um extremely gory
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Evil Dead remakes um he uh is a very talented uh director of Thrillers and
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and and growing tension um he uh has made a film here that is kind of I've
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seen described a lot in a lot of places as a bit of a greatest hits of the alien and Prometheus and Covenant franchise um
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it doesn't do a lot for it uh to change the game or anything like that but that said it's an enormously fun film it's a
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it's a um film that had a great time watching it's very involving um even if it doesn't necessarily push the push the
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boundaries or make you think too much it's a weird one it it starts off really
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well it does yeah I mean all of the all of the stuff you know where it's not trying to retread I think is great and a
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very strong cast Kaye spany and uh uh who plays the uh
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uh the Android of this um yeah I mean she was in Priscilla early in the year yeah she's she's really good she's
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fantastic and David Johnson who plays um her Android kind of adoptive brother is
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really fantastic and creepy as well um uh overall it's a it's a solid film it's
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not one that's going to change the game but it's enjoyable it's had a lot of success in the box office but there has been a bit of a a sting on the tail
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which has been that um uh within the film there is a sequence
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where um they find a an an an Android on the romula ship they reanimate it and
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they spend some time kind of hiding the face of this person but if you hear the voice and you know the actor you know
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immediately um and then they finally reveal it and it's a model of the ash
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Android played by Ian home in the original alien um and what they've done
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is they've created a kind of AI deep fake version
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of iol and plased it on the face of an actor Y and recreated his voice in a
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method that I've seen described online as uh digital
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Taxidermy that's actually really good it's I mean it is basically that and it feels very ethically jubia to me
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very especially because Ian home has been dead for four years and and um
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great actor wonderful actor but um uh it does and and apparently there
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has the credits thank the in home estate so there must have been some sort of permission given of course but does that
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um justify it I mean I don't see a is it
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really necessary I don't see a narrative justification for it at all we already know that there are other Androids that
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kind of have similar you know we could have had who look like humans so we
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could have had any number of actors and I'm sure any actor would have jumped at the chance to play this role yeah um I
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kind of it's just once they get to the ship it really does start turning into
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like a greatest hits you know some of the I mean the lines that oh yeah and they like re uh repurpose lines and like
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some of them are just atrocious like get away from her you [ __ ] that was pretty grown worthy um but I just and also it
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feels like it's kind of against the kind of ethos of the film which is this kind
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of uh very contained story there's a lot of practical effects at play yeah why
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they would choose to do this kind of ghoulish and not convincing in the slightest um deep fake thing which is
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kind of similar to if anyone seen Rogue one the recreation of the um gr off T
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and Peter cushion character that's bad um it's arguably and it's he's a major character the Ian
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home character in Alien Romulus is pretty major to the story yeah um I mean pretty much the three borders of the
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film right yeah it's a it's a bizarre one and I think it kind of speaks
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to perhaps some of the more negative trends that we're seeing in in these uh
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you know these major kind of Hollywood films that are being put out this this urge to kind of indulge in these AI kind
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of um shortcuts um and Nostalgia baiting um
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and trying to recall in the same way as those terrible reuses of lines in the film um trying to the purpose is just to
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make someone say hey I remember that character hey I remember that line I I mean surely you know fedy Alvarez is seeing
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these comments online totally I mean I don't understand I don't know why
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filmmakers would continue to do this type of thing it doesn't make a huge amount of sense there's been so much
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negative backlash to it that all I can really surmise is that it's something
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that has been pushed by um companies Studios that have put a big amount of
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investment into this kind of Technology yeah um which is a shame it's an
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absolute shame because otherwise this film was very this film could have really been something I mean the the
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whole start on the mining really promising stuff amazing and the cast is very very strong and some of the effects
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are really great it does have this third act kind of twist a it's a mess but at
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least it's a swing for the fences guess I mean it's completely bananas but it's it's really enjoyable at the same time
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but it is completely Missy I mean even some of the stuff where uh kayle fenny is like in her like you know like
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underwear basically and then she gets into a space suit and it's kind of a
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compl we yeah totally um whether this will lead to it I mean it's been huge
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success so whether this will lead to more uh Alien films that pick up this
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story and carry it forward or if we'll finally see the third part on the Ridley Scott Prometheus Trilogy uh unlikely I
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would imagine um we will see I suppose I I think like more alien stories are fine
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absolutely but you know I'd rather they were original absolutely and and not
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using uh pretty ghoulish technology I would say yeah uh the next big story I
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guess of the past few weeks we've lost two real giants of 60s 7s Cinema yeah
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we've lost um Jenna Rollins and alalon um two fil two actors who are quite
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quite different from each other but both represent a kind of um major moments in 20th Century Cinema we've got J rolands
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Who Um is an amazing one of the great
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actresses she is an incredible film actress she started as kind of a
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Hollywood starlist and then uh coming together with with John cavi is one of
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the Great American filmmakers um the work that they produced together was um
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is still admired and studied um to this day people know her probably best I mean
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people probably know her best in general from her appearance of the notebook which is directed by uh I would hope not one
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would hope not but I think I've seen enough news reportage saying star of The Notebook passes away to to convince me
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otherwise but that is actually directed by Nick CES which is her son um but we
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but otherwise she's probably best known for working A Woman Under the Influence which is a masterpiece front to back um
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because of her performance which is electric and it it is one of the most
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raw and um uh lacking in ego kind of
33:36
performances that you've ever seen um but there there's a a great number of
33:41
places you can start with Jenna Rollins I mean we can recommend that you watch A
33:47
Woman Under the Influence probably a good place to start absolutely it is an exhausting film but that's kind of a
33:52
point yes um it is challenging it's challenging it's a film about um um a
33:58
family that is struggling to hold it together um and at the center of it is Jenna rolland's character who has a
34:06
whole number of kind of um I guess you would say
34:11
issues um that they're struggling to work through um it's it's volcanic in
34:16
the best sense of the word um but there's also a number of great um cassavetes uh collaborations that you
34:23
could check out she was in a lot of them opening nights um Love love
34:28
streams uh faces all of these are great places to look if you're looking for a deeper cut I would really recommend love
34:35
streams which is a later work of the two of them but it's one that um uh is very
34:41
moving and very strange and she's great in it naturally we also have Alan Delon
34:47
who is um a a Titan of French Cinema there's no other way to put it um and
34:53
his death is is pretty major kind of it feels like an endo to a lot of that kind
34:58
of era we lost Jean Luke Godard recently and I feel like losing alalon is a similar kind of massive kind of end
35:06
point to a certain era of Cinema yeah I mean he's kind of like the last one of
35:12
the like cool actors yeah the the French Mega cool kind of New Wave he was a
35:20
major kind of instrumental part of the French New Wave um uh he was also known
35:25
for being just in insanely beautiful a very handsome actor there's no there's
35:31
no denying that um there's a great number of amazing films that he's been in lway is a great film um and that is
35:40
probably the Pinnacle of Al landal on cool yeah Samurai is definitely the one it's definitely that's in my litter box
35:48
top four yeah it's a pretty special film um there's also you know he was in films
35:53
like Lapine which is the swimming pool um he had us he had a supporting role in
35:59
thecon the leopard which I still think about at all the time um incredible film
36:05
one a film that I would recommend that people seek out one of his earlier films uh is Rocco and his brothers which
36:12
that's great unbelievable and a precursor to something like The Godfather um it's a big sweeping Italian
36:20
tragedy about three brothers I think it's three brothers um and uh postwar
36:26
Italy um who kind of come to ruin and it's a very very powerful film uh one of
36:32
my favorites and Al land Delon um you can see the beginnings of a massive
36:37
career in cinema um two filmmakers uh sorry two stars who I would suggest if
36:44
you uh haven't made a start on their work go and check it out uh you will be
36:50
rewarded immensely uh and talking a little bit more local now we're going to be talking
36:57
a little a bit about uh some of the elements of the New Zealand Cinema
37:02
distribution area which is obviously something you're very familiar with sure so do you want to start by telling us a
37:08
little bit about what your day-to-day what your role kind of entails oh my go
37:14
and uh and um I guess my role has two sort of distinct facets um
37:23
one is taking thumbs that madman has on its
37:28
and selling them into Cinemas convincing exhibitors to show our films but then
37:35
the more exciting part is actually being sent scripts and attaching to them and
37:43
getting you know helping them help getting them financed and and developing the scripts and giving notes and on
37:50
edits and basically seeing the film into completion very cool and so what would
37:56
you car have you how's this year been in terms of in terms of Cinema releases for man man
38:02
it's been pretty busy actually it has yeah I mean what have we had we had
38:08
perfect days and Priscilla and the mountain at the start all three seem
38:13
like they were quite big bright spots at the beginning of the year I know there was a lot of discussion around all three of those films yeah um I think with I
38:21
mean with a local film there's just so much more work because you're not being h Ed you
38:28
know posters and trailers and everything you just have to create all of that um
38:34
so like yeah doing something like the mountain and we were dangerous you know that comes out today great these are you
38:41
know these are films that take a lot of effort yeah right and so what what do
38:47
your read of of what's happening in terms of Cinema distribution in New
38:52
Zealand is it a is it a boom time for for New Zealand Cinema uh the local
38:58
Cinema I guess in terms of like people going to the cinema but also in terms of what's being distributed to them I mean
39:04
it's It's Tricky there I mean I think at the moment it's a little fallow but I
39:09
mean the film festival's on So that obviously keeps things going um the last
39:14
school holidays was huge with inside out and Despicable Me um and then we're
39:21
coming into like another huge couple of months at the end of the year that the November December run will be massive is
39:28
there anything that has surprised you this year in terms of how successful it's been
39:35
um I wouldn't say surpris me like maybe maybe just how large that run in the
39:41
last school holidays was it was pretty big yeah um yeah I don't know it's it's
39:48
they're usually like the odd film that will surprise you but I don't think there's any
39:53
like General sense of surprise the I think think maybe maybe the way that the
40:00
the local films have performed has been a little disappointing I mean they've all kind of not performed to what we
40:07
would have thought um you know going back to like uproar as well like uproar convert Mountain even kifi if that's a
40:15
good result but probably not what we would have expected
40:20
like a couple of years ago maybe right and not all not all of those are May men are they all men no no not all may yeah
40:27
yeah I mean what do you think what do you think needs to be done in order to draw people to these New
40:32
Zealand films again that's a tricky question yeah too early in the days delve too
40:39
deep into that yeah um I don't necessarily have an answer
40:45
for that to be honest do you see this kind of um turning away from Cinema to
40:51
streaming do you still think that's relevant to a point
40:57
definitely I mean definitely with like something like documentaries yeah um
41:04
during Co obviously everything went to streaming um and for documentaries
41:10
people are just used to seeing documentaries on streaming platforms now so getting them across theatrically is
41:17
just way more difficult sure so what's your so what's m men's strategy in terms of looking for items uh projects to to
41:26
put your kind of strength behind push out on the world both International and
41:32
local what kind of things are you looking for I mean I don't necessarily
41:38
think we have an eye on any sort of specific genre we're just after like
41:43
just really quality pieces of Cinema well I think it really for madman
41:49
specifically I think there is this association with the company with a certain level of kind of independent
41:55
quality I mean it seems like you guys make very educated and and Savvy
42:01
decisions around Which films to to include in your roster um and that
42:08
includes local film but it also talks to the fact that you guys have megalopolis you have the substance yeah you know
42:13
other great International films yeah is it just is it literally just luck of the draw or is it no not at all I mean we
42:19
make a considered effort to go after films like that right so you're watching like how people are responding to them
42:25
that kind of thing um I don't know if necessarily we're looking at like responses I mean we you
42:31
know we pick up something like we picked up like substance and megalopolis and
42:37
like at cam probably before they were shown right um I think it's just a case
42:43
of like being able to identify quality projects yeah so would
42:50
you say that your filmmaker focused would you say like that's definitely I mean especially with the local projects
42:56
choosing the right absolutely I mean I think most of it is looking at people
43:04
that you want to work with I mean the script has to be good sure but I'm not just going to work with any old person
43:12
you know well I think we were dangerous is a really good example of this in a sense I mean you have Josephine Stewart
43:18
to few she's great wonderful director one of our most promising kind of emerging filmmakers yeah um before we
43:26
move on do you want to tell tell us a little bit about how that relationship came to be um the the the relationship
43:34
there was um we have a co-distribution deal with picky and picky had identified
43:41
that project fantastic um so we had very like as opposeed like most other
43:47
projects we have we had a little to do with the actual identification of that one right right right that was that was
43:53
Kew and Morgan but you guys are pushing it out now and it's um it seems like
43:59
there's a good amount of Buzz around it I mean I saw it and I thought it was fantastic yeah it's a great film yeah um and people are responding to it really
44:05
positively yeah really promising stuff
44:13
[Music] yeah so now we're going to be talking
44:18
about what's coming up in the world of streaming um there's a whole lot of films uh dropping in September and uh TV
44:25
shows some of which uh just recently had a bow at the New Zealand International Film Festival uh the one I'm I really
44:32
want to talk to you about is uh the Beast or laet uh from Bertram Bello very
44:38
cool French filmmaker I think he's French um he made a film called noct Tama um which is wonderful wonderful
44:45
film um and this is his new film it's probably I think you could probably characterize it as his most ambitious
44:51
film it is adapted from a Henry James short story called The Beast in the jungle um um and it is a very strange
45:01
ambitious uh exciting challenging science fiction film um starring Leia
45:07
seu great actress um is about a woman in the future who um in order to get a job
45:16
I believe she has signs up for this process where an AI system uh explores
45:23
her past lives and by encounter them rids her of the accumulative trauma and
45:31
pain of those times very heav concept and um uh and so basically the film has
45:38
these three different sections there's one in the future where everything's kind of been uh rendered in this kind of
45:45
muted fashion by AI where most emotion has been drained from the world and then
45:50
there's a modern day section or reasonably modern day it's sent in 2012 and uh it's about uh a woman who is kind
45:59
of entering in Hollywood um and Encounters this kind of um Aaron Roger
46:05
style uh incel character and then there is a sequence um something like 100
46:13
years before that um which is uh probably a lot closer to what the Henry
46:19
James short story which I haven't read um is uh is it's talking about where
46:25
it's um set in this kind of very well-to-do high upper class party and
46:32
all of them center around this connection that is formed between um Leia seu and the uh the object of her
46:40
evictions who's played by George maai of of 1917 um and the relationship that they
46:47
form in each of the three segments is different from the one that came before
46:53
um but they're all fascinating um it's it's it's a really kaleidos
46:59
kaleidoscopic film it has a whole lot of twists and turns I think probably the
47:04
most effective sequence is the um modern day sequence which draws on yeah kind of
47:10
our understanding of the modern day incel yeah and uh it turns into this
47:17
kind of very frightening Thriller um paranoic kind of sequence um
47:25
Leu is doing work in this film that is absolutely astonishing She is totally
47:30
magnetic um one of her best performances which I think is saying a lot cuz she is a great she has a great uh body of work
47:37
she really doesn't even if she's in a kind of aage film she always stands out yeah she doesn't miss um and so uh this
47:46
is a really really special film um I won't just spoil too much more about what goes on in the film but mostly
47:52
because I don't actually know necessarily what happens but it is worth seeking out anyway
47:57
um very very cool film um coming to Disney plus I imagine is Agatha all
48:04
along which is a TV series uh spin-off
48:10
of One Division Katherine Han who played a
48:15
character called Agatha in one division is getting her own show for some reason okay well Katherine H's great kther H is
48:22
excellent and to be fair she probably was a high point of One Division um
48:27
now uh I am not a huge fan of these Disney plus Series in general I don't
48:34
think they have much going for them especially these Marvel series I mean
48:40
one of the big things I think is that they all just kind of vanish as soon as they appear it's it's just it's so
48:46
tricky when you have to watch these series that they put in the middle of the
48:52
films then it's just so much work it really backfired on them and I think like the we've seen that you know the
48:59
Marvel machine is is backing off this kind of approach because the quality of
49:06
the output was not good and the and it just lead to this general cheapening of
49:12
the brand I guess if that's something that is important to you I suppose um
49:19
it's listen I'm not a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the impacts it's had on the C cinema world um but oh
49:28
man if you even consider like the difference in quality from those early works like something like a genuinely
49:35
pretty good film that first Captain America film yeah it's fine it's fun right which is all it needed to be
49:42
compared to all this kind of slop that's being put out at the moment uh yeah this
49:47
cycle has been depressing it's been hugely depressing and whether or not EA all along uh which is about a witch
49:54
coven I believe um uh changes the game I don't know if it will um but we'll see
50:01
uh that drops this month also uh a spin-off from another superhero property
50:08
is uh the penguin from Matt Reeves the Batman which came out last year which
50:15
again had this kind of really respectable critical response but I really just did nothing for me at all um
50:23
and this is a spin-off of another breakout character much like C H character uh Colin frell and a huge
50:30
amount of makeup playing the penguin he's doing like this like hey like this
50:36
like Italian American Gangster uh character um who feels like in the
50:42
Batman movie he feels like he's been dropped in from another movie now he is um now there's a series about him I
50:48
suppose um it has a fair amount of Buzz um again the origin that Matt
50:57
Reeves the Batman yeah it had all these markers and qualifiers of being like a more serious
51:04
nanes Batman yeah but I think it just didn't quite get there um it just felt a
51:12
little bit um un underwhelming it didn't really
51:18
um there was just something missing there was some element of of um uh
51:25
true um excitement that you know even at their lowest moments those NN films had
51:32
back in the day I mean to be honest the when I think of the penguin it's just Danny deito now oh totally 100% yeah
51:39
that one was kind of interesting like it's out of the Burton ones that was that one was dark dark man we talking
51:46
about Burton a lot today oh we are um I mean yeah that's what the penguin should
51:51
be is this cartoonish nightmarish kind of character not uh like a terrible Tony
51:58
Soprano ripoff um but nevertheless that's what's coming up uh I believe
52:04
that's probably dropping on neon now there is a film that's coming out which was slated to come out in cinemas but
52:09
for whatever reason they've decided to pull it back and drop it in woles cinas which is wolves right um which is a
52:16
terrible title but nevertheless um it does have two of the
52:21
biggest stars in the world as George Clooney and Brad Pit reuniting now the last time they were
52:27
together correct me if I'm wrong but I think it was probably the oceans films yeah would have been right which were
52:33
huge box office juggernauts in their times I think Brad Pit and George Clooney whatever you think of them they
52:39
are still big box office drawers and they work well together they work very well together and uh you know for
52:45
example ticket to Paradise George Clooney that made a good decent amount of money um the things that Brad Pit has
52:51
been in recently they've made a decent amount of money so it's a very puzzling choice to me to drop this on streaming
52:58
on Apple TV without any kind of Cinema run I mean I don't know exactly but it
53:05
kind of seems like an apple decision for a universal decision to oh totally absolutely um whether that speaks to
53:12
their lack of confidence in the project or whether they just really want to go all in on streaming I don't know it
53:18
seems like a decision that they'd make to bolster the service really yeah yeah that probably makes sense I mean it's a
53:24
film about these two kind of cleaners think Harvey kitel and Pulp Fiction who
53:30
um are both sent to the same crime scene uh which then turns to turns into
53:36
something that neither of them expected I believe and uh you know from the trailers we've seen this kind of very
53:41
Charming interplay between the two of them it's fun seeing them on screen together I really want to see this when
53:47
does it drop uh in late September um and it's going to be yeah on Apple TV plus
53:54
um it is yeah it's just great to see these two very kind of Hollywood stall
54:00
warts bounce off each other that's part of the reason why the ocean swims are so enjoyable yeah um so you know why it's
54:06
not in cinas who knows but seek it out on streaming CU I think it does look quite
54:21
quality and we also have uh on the rialo channel exclusive ly premiering we have
54:28
the series The Passenger which comes to us from Andrew buin which a lot of people will probably know as the uh very
54:36
nasty uh murderer from broad Church um he is an actor who is uh taking a taking
54:44
a turn in the writers chair um this show is is is really cool
54:49
and really exciting it's um a series that uh premiered on ITV in bristen I
54:54
believe and it's uh it's kind of like a Fargo esque story with a bit more of a
55:01
science fiction twist um it starts with this kind of mysterious small town
55:09
called chadil um and there's some sort
55:14
of uh Sinister stranger things es going
55:19
on um where someone may have brought some sort of creature or something into
55:25
this town um for reasons unknown I've seen three episodes I'm very excited to
55:31
see the other three um let's watch a clip from uh from es uh from the
55:38
passenger you just need to find care it's it's dark it's freezing and
55:45
wherever she is she needs a more what would you know about this town you've been here 10 minutes sometimes before we
55:53
go on our next Journey work through stuff I mean they reckon that parts of
56:00
London might be underwater by the end of the century Bye by me have you ever been to London n why would I spend half a day
56:06
on a train to see a bunch of people I don't even
56:12
know I definitely think Ria is trying to escape something she absolutely is not
56:18
where she thought she would be at 40 years old she left her townhouse in
56:24
wesworth in London with a big flying job to come to this small town and I think
56:29
she's not taken seriously at work she's like there's more to life and she's not
56:34
able to fully fulfill any of it I mean if it's not cat with a cough it's missing bins what's wrong with missing
56:41
bins there's nothing wrong with missing bins it's just we've got missing girls I just feel like it's me V them I thought
56:47
I made it pretty clear no more conspiracy crap Nish is an outsider he's a brown
56:53
boy in a town that's predominantly white and a town but probably voted leave he's
56:59
kind of coasting through life Ali I would say is someone that's quite keen on doing things by the book I watch Like
57:07
documentaries about what how make yourself breathe like a fish stuff like that but then with Ria she sort of
57:15
starts to realize that there is something bigger than that I we thinking about Ria maybe we should help her out
57:24
she really kind of IGN something in both of us and we're like well we don't want to go back to sort of pruning Stags and
57:33
clipping bushes look depressing boss boss tasteful that's just bkb boss best
57:40
get the L boss I don't think that the wells were ever happy families I wish you were dead when Eddie comes out of
57:47
prison it's really tips everything upside down for Joanne it's affected her as a person and it's affected her kids
57:54
she just wants to keep her head down get on with it and um a lot of people judge
58:01
her not in the best light Katie is in a lot of distress feel like I need out she
58:08
also has like a lot of aspirations with her career and things like that honestly I do think Lily probably does slightly
58:16
disapprove of Katie a lot of people in Chad so trying to run away she's very much trying to find her purpose look
58:22
like he pops some muscle on in prison I've always lik traps Devil's ready he's
58:27
the village bad boy if you will he comes back into town with a lot of baggage he's trying to pick up where he left off
58:35
and try and bed back into firstly his family his wife and his daughters but
58:43
ultimately he's trying to fit back into to CH just stay home keep out of
58:48
everybody's way it's about people who are trapped in
58:54
many ways some of them are happy to be trapped I think there's a sense of protection you know you're in amongst the hills it's cozy and yet other
59:01
individuals within the drama they feel as if they need to escape as if they need to kind of climb those mountains and and and fly I don't want to become
59:10
that become what you it's not that I'm afraid of
59:17
Mom it's you
59:26
so it's a very very cool show it's um you can see there are little pieces of
59:32
um other popular series there there's an element of Twin Peaks and there are some stranger things there's a lot of Fargo
59:38
that kind of small town um you know bunch of different kind of kooky
59:44
characters who kind of get drawn into this bigger more kind of
59:50
violent um situation um it's got a great cast um I will point out that would be
59:56
masako who is uh masaku who is um the central figure kind of a Marge Gunderson
1:00:03
from Fargo kind of character um and she is probably best known for playing um
1:00:11
playing a kind of side character in in the Loki series um she showed up in Deadpool and
1:00:16
Wolverine um she's very good in this she's a really great anchor but there's also some great work from this kind of
1:00:23
central family this Laura Palmer isk Palmer family of this world um it's very
1:00:30
atmospheric it's very well shot um and uh it's very intriguing the first
1:00:35
episode it does not go where you think it's going to go I don't want to give too much away but there's a an ending
1:00:41
moment where a character walks in that you do not expect to walk in and it kind of changes the nature of the show and
1:00:47
it's um it's it's really well worth seeking out so that's all for today um
1:00:53
uh thank you so much L for being here with us um it has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you um I know you
1:00:59
have a very busy day with the release of where we're dangerous so thank you for giving you giving us your time not a
1:01:05
problem thanks uh for inviting me thank you so much mate see you next time
1:01:13
cheers Mad Men are very kindly offering up uh some tickets to give away uh we
1:01:20
have two double passes to the substance the excellent body horror from Cory
1:01:26
fudgy and also two double passes to Francis Ford coppers megalopolis if
1:01:33
you're anything like me that is the musty film of the year uh how to get your hands on them head to view
1:01:39
magazine.co.uk
1:01:55
follow us on Facebook and Instagram uh every month we're going to have a new guest uh here in uh the uh vew mag
1:02:04
office um we will be announcing that very shortly so look out for that uh
1:02:11
next month we're going to be talking about films like Joker Folly Adu uh a mistake the New Zealand film from
1:02:17
Christine Jeffs super slman the Christopher reev Story the documentary about Christopher reev um there's a 4K
1:02:24
restoration of our urasawa's Masterpiece 7 Samurai Venom the Last Dance uh a very
1:02:31
very good film called Last Summer which was at the film festival last year and a whole bunch of other things so please
1:02:37
tune in then uh my name has been Tom Austine thank you very much for joining
1:02:42
me today

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