Is Ebenezer Good?

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. I’ll Say She Is! At the Cinema Museum: https://cinemamuseum.org.uk/schedule/category/events/ill-say-she-is/ Vanguard - Investing gives your money the opportunity to grow over time, but market movements mean values can rise and fall along the way. Toctoro.com You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes: 07:46 How to Rob a Bank review 14:31 Box Office Top Ten 26:31 Rupert Grint interview 40:13 Ebenezer review 51:22 Laughter Lift 57:22 Fjord review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. Our special guest this week is the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Martin McDonagh, creator of In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Banshees of Inisherin and more. He chats to Simon about Wild Horse Nine, His latest film starring Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich, out this week. They talk about filming on the super-remote Rapa Nui (Easter Island), CIA skulduggery, and whether Malkovich is as scary as he seems. Check out Take 2 for a bonus part two of their chat. Plus Mark reviews Wild Horse Nine, along with THREE more massive movies in another packed show. There’s Spanish civil war epic La Bola Negra, the latest instalment of everyone’s favourite smashy-crashy Japanese creature feature in Godzilla Minus Zero, and the real life story of one of 70s cinema’s greatest stars retold in I Play Rocky. Plus all the usual delightful nonsense, the Box office Top 10, and a Laughter Lift that might actually be quite funny this week… You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] 30th edition of the UK Jewish Film Festival, 5th – 15th November: https://ukjewishfilm.org/ Incogni. They can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code TAKE at the link below and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/take Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes: 00:09:15 La Bola Negra review 00:18:26 Box Office Top Ten 00:31:54 Martin McDonagh interview 00:47:06 Wild Horse Nine review 00:56:44 Laughter Lift 01:01:48 I Play Rocky review 01:11:39 Godzilla Minus Zero review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. It’s another packed show this week, with a bumper four films up for review again in Take 1… First, Mark will be tackling Primetime, a psychological thriller from Lance Oppenheim starring Robert Pattinson as journalist Chris Hansen, inspired by the true story behind To Catch a Predator. Next up is Wicker, where fantasy and romance collide with comedy as Olivia Colman’s lonely and socially outcast fisherwoman commissions a basket maker to weave her the perfect husband, played by Alexander Skarsgård. Plus, Mark will finally take the floor to unpack The Devils: Director’s Cut, as Ken Russell’s infamous classic returns to the big screen in a newly restored and expanded edition, thanks in part to the Good Doctor himself. Finally, we’ve got Animol, Ashley Walters’ directorial debut prison drama starring Tut Nyuot, Vladyslav Baliuk and Stephen Graham. It follows young inmates as they navigate friendship, identity and survival inside a young offenders institution. Ashley is also our special guest this week, so he’ll be joining Mark and Simon to talk about moving behind the camera for this poignant and personal story, working with its breakthrough young cast, and more. And guess what? They’re all in the studio IRL, as the kids say. Plus, we count down the latest Box Office Top 10, venture once more into the humourless abyss of The Laughter Lift, and open the correspondence bag to examine your finest emergency mails. You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Jazz and animation in Lincoln: www.TomThorpe.co.uk Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. MHfestival.com from 19th Oct to 8th Nov. https://www.crosshandshallandcinema.co.uk/  Timecodes: 00:00:00:00 Introduction 00:07:00:15 Primetime review 00:15:36:16 Box Office Top Ten 00:30:29:14 Ashley Walters interview 00:46:01:10 Animol review 00:53:22:09 Laughter Lift 00:57:33:18 Wicker review 01:09:06:12 The Devils review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. Simon Mayo is back behind the mic this week, and the Redactor is back in the shadows, just where Mayo likes him to stay. It’s a bumper week with four reviews in today’s Take 1. In the superhero blockbuster corner we’ve got Clayface, a body-horror thriller starring Tom Rhys Harries in an origin story for the DC villain, and at the arthouse end of things we’ve got Fatherland, Paweł Pawlikowski’s post-war European drama starring Sandra Hüller. Plus, a documentary with Jeanie Findlay’s grassroots environmental exposé All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea. And last but not least, coming at you from the afterlife, we have Ghosts: The Possession of Button House. Which brings us to this week’s guests… It’s Jim Howick and Laurence Rickard, AKA Ghosts’ Pat Butcher and Robin The Caveman (not forgetting the headless Humphrey Bone). The stars and co-creators unpack the beloved BBC sitcom’s big-screen adventure with Simon, and Mark will be reviewing it too. All that plus our weekly Box Office Top 10 rundown, the humour-graveyard that is The Laughter Lift, and your top correspondence examined by The Good Doctors. You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo What’s on: The Big Scream 22-24 October 2026, Bristol Megascreen https://www.forbiddenworldsfilmfestival.co.uk/big-scream-2026 Deal Film Festival 23-26 October 2026 Deal, Kent https://www.dealfilmfestival.org/ Vanguard - Investing gives your money the opportunity to grow over time, but market movements mean values can rise and fall along the way Home Movie Day 2026 24 October @ 10:30 https://cinemamuseum.org.uk/scheduled/home-movie-day-2026/ Mystery screening at Emmanuel Church in Newport on Saturday 24th October: https://www.emmanuel-newport.org.uk/ Timecodes: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:09:11 All Rivers Spill Their Story to the Sea 00:17:06 Box Office Top Ten 00:29:08 Jim Howick & Laurence Rickard Interview 00:44:36 Ghosts review 00:49:48 Laughter Lift 00:54:20 Fatherland review 01:03:51 Clayface review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. With Simon Mayo off on the Marrakech Express, Simon Poole, AKA The Redactor is stepping into the breach to host the Take this week. After 15 long years his moment in the limelight has finally come, and by God is he milking it for all it’s worth. How will he measure up to Mayo? There’s only one way to find out… Simon Poole also interviews our special guests this week: Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams. They talk Whalefall, a new survival drama adapted from Daniel Kraus’s acclaimed novel about—yes—accidentally falling inside a whale. Come on, we’ve all done it. They discuss the film’s stomach-churning underwater peril, plus we hear some on-set anecdotes about Josh’s literally churning stomach whilst filming No Country For Old Men. And, of course, Simon couldn’t let the interview go by without a question or two about The Goonies… We’ll get Mark’s verdict on Whalefall too, alongside two more new releases: Forgotten Island, an animated adventure about lifelong friendship and unquiet spirits, and Street Fighter, which brings the iconic video game franchise back to the big screen. Plus, we’ll take our customary spin through the Box Office Top 10, sample a healthy serving of your correspondence, and collapse with pure hilarity once again in the Laughter Lift. Will Simon Poole hand back the keys when Mayo returns? Only time will tell. Thanks for listening to another top Take. You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes: Forgotten Island review 00:12:09 Box Office Top Ten 00:18:36 Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams interview 00:39:10 Whalefall review 00:53:46 Laughter Lift 01:01:28 Street Fighter review 01:04:06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. Paul Greengrass is our special guest this week, and he’s talking to Simon about The Uprising—his new medieval thriller set at the time of the peasants revolt. It stars Andrew Garfield as ‘Ploughman’, who’s violent rebuttal to one tax collection too many provides the spark for the historic revolution, alongside Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis) and John Ball (Jamie Bell). Paul chats to Simon about the film’s political echoes today and more. Mark reviews it too, plus two more enticing titles coming up on the big and small screen. First up it’s The Social Reckoning, a companion piece to The Social Network from last week’s guest Aaron Sorkin, tackling the Facebook Files scandal. Then there’s Mike Flanagan’s series adaptation of Carrie, which translates Stephen King’s classic into the modern day. Plus we’ll get the Good Doctors’ usual rundown through the Box Office Top 10, hear a delightful smattering of your correspondence, and all groan through the laughter lift together. Thanks for listening to another top Take. You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:09:05 The Social Reckoning 00:24:37 Box Office Top Ten 00:38:09 Paul Greengrass interview 00:51:10 The Uprising review 01:03:01 Laughter Lift 01:06:43 Carrie review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. Three more big screen big hitters are getting the Take treatment this week. First up, the British boarding school answer to Booksmart, Extra Geography, which follows the offbeat romantic quest of two Oxbridge hopefuls with an unlikely love interest. Next up, Verity: an Anne Hathaway led horror with a dash of the erotic thriller. And last but not least, we’ll get the Good Doctors’ verdict on Tom Cruise’s latest and quite possibly maddest movie yet, Digger. Our special guest is Oscar-winning writer and director Aaron Sorkin, who chats to Simon about his new film The Social Reckoning, out next week. In this companion piece to The Social Network, he revisits the theme of social media with a focus on The Facebook Files, the expose on the link between facebook’s algorithm and political radicalisation in the run up to the Capitol Riots of 2021. It’s a meaty conversation with one of our greatest living screenwriters, not to be missed. Plus the box office top 10, and top tips from your correspondence about how to beat bladder-bursting movie runtimes and more in another top-drawer Take. You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes:    00:09:38 Extra Geography review  00:17:07 Box office top ten  00:29:07 Aaron Sorkin interview  00:46:31 Verity review  00:55:14 Laughter Lift  01:00:21 Digger review  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. George MacKay is our special guest this week, and he’s in full dashing Austenian gentleman mode to tell Simon all about Sense and Sensibility. He plays Edward Ferrars, the handsome and thoroughly upstanding chap who catches the eye of Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Elinor Dashwood. He talks about bringing this Austen classic up to date, three decades on from Ang Lee’s classic screen version starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. Mark reviews the film, plus another three big movies hitting cinema screens this week. There’s Heart of the Beast, a survival thriller starring Brad Pitt as an ex-special forces soldier living on society’s inhospitable margins alongside his ex-service dog. Plus we’ll finally get Mark’s verdict on Her Private Hell, the latest neon-soaked feature from recent Take guest Nicolas Winding Refn. Last but certainly not least, Boorman and the Devil - a documentary about the making of the colossally unsuccessful sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic. Surely this one is Kermode catnip. Plus the weekly joy (and/or pain) of the Laughter Lift, and of your consistently excellent correspondence. Keep it coming! You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:10:15 Her Private Hell review 00:19:29 Box Office Top Ten 00:31:46 George McKay interview 00:47:24 Sense and Sensibility review 00:56:40 Laughter Lift 00:59:20 Boorman and the Devil review 01:08:29 Heart of the Beast review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. Legendary French actress Juliette Binoche is our special guest this week. She’ll be talking to Simon about her new film Queen at Sea, a hard-hitting drama examining the tensions and taboos of caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s. Plus we’ll hear a little about her dance documentary directorial debut In-I in Motion - which is also released in the UK this week. She even challenges Simon to get on the dancefloor…now that we would like to see… Mark reviews Queen at Sea, as well as three more big screen releases - it is, as they say, a packed show. We’ll get his verdicts on Resident Evil - an adaptation of the hugely popular videogame from Weapons director Zach Cregger - as well as dark classroom satire Bad Apples, starring Saoirse Ronan, and the latest Aardman animated treat, Shaun The Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom. Plus an uncharacteristically quite-funny Laughter Lift (which we really did need this week…), and all your excellent correspondence. Keep it coming please! You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [email protected] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:09:51 Resident Evil review 00:20:20 Box Office Top Ten 00:31:52 Juliette Binoche interview 00:48:02 Queen at Sea review 01:00:04 Laughter Lift 01:03:12 Bad Apples review 01:12:38 Shaun The Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo    Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time.    On this week's Take, Simon and Mark are back in the booth and diving into a packed slate of new releases. From the spellbinding return of Practical Magic 2 to the vertigo-inducing thrills of Fall 2, they weigh up the latest sequels hoping to recapture cinematic lightning in a bottle. There's also a look at the tense wartime-weather-system drama Pressure and jazz biopic Everybody Digs Bill Evans, exploring the life and legacy of one of the genre’s most influential musicians and featuring last week’s guest Bill Pullman.     Plus, director Nicolas Winding Refn joins Simon for a conversation about coming back from the dead (for real), and Her Private Hell—his first film in a decade, out on September 25th. Keep your eyes peeled for Mark’s review then too.     Along the way there's the usual mix of film news, recommendations, correspondence, and of course the Laughter Lift. Time to settle in, press play, and enjoy another trip to the cinema with Mark and Simon.     You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo.    A Sony Music Entertainment production.        Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts      To advertise on this show contact: [email protected]    EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!    Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it!     Here’s the link for tickets:  https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo   Timecodes:  00:00:00 Introduction 00:13:23 Pressure review  00:23:25 Box Office Top Ten  00:35:21 Nicholas Winding Refn interview  00:49:01 Everybody Digs Bill Evans  00:59:05 Laughter Lift  01:01:31 Fall 2  01:12:01 Practical Magic 2  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices