Best birdsong ever from Robert Carlyle

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. A smashy crashy action movie double bill on the review slate this week. First up, ‘Novocaine’—the action comedy where Jack Quaid plays Nathan Caine, a man born with a disorder that leaves him unable to feel pain. When the bank he works in is robbed and the girl of his dreams taken hostage, he discovers his physical quirk can be a superpower. But will it make Mark wince? Plus, The Stath returns in ‘A Working Man’--where he’s Jason Statham, doing Stath things. That’s probably all you need to know... but Mark will tell us where it’s at in the Stath stakes. Our guest this week is none other than Gorgeous George MacKay, who plays ‘Son’ in Josh Oppenheimer’s post-apocalyptic bunker-musical (yes, you read that correctly) ‘The End’. Set 25 years after an environmental catastrophe leaves the earth uninhabitable, MacKay and his ‘Mother’ (Tilda Swinton) and ‘Father (Michael Shannon) carry on a life of luxury and denial in their opulent underground shelter—where Son was born and raised, never having known life before. As Father writes a memoir nobody will read, and the family sing and dance their way through their bizarre existence in Golden-Age style, their brittle harmony is broken by the arrival of an unexpected guest. George tells Simon all about singing, dancing, having the most arthouse onscreen parents evs, and how his own new fatherhood has made him feel differently about the end of the world. Plus more correspondence on Flow from our Latvian listeners, the Milennium Bug from ‘Y2K’ defenders, and of course Snow White--including a message from a young critic giving Mark a run for his money. Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Novocaine Review: 09:04 George MacKay interview: 29:14 The End review: 42:54 Laughter Lift: 51:55 A Working Man Review: 56:13 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. The much anticipated ‘Flow’ is first on the review slate this week. The Oscar-winning animation follows the story of a solitary black cat, displaced from its home by a huge flood in a world now devoid of humans, who finds refuge on a boat with a crew of other animals who must work together to survive. Plus The Alto Knights—the new gangster flick where Robert De Niro as 1950s New York Mafioso Frank Costello squares up to, erm, himself as rival Vito Genovese—and of course Snow White—the live action remake of the 1937 Disney classic. Our guest this week is the fabulously French auteur director Francois Ozon, who’s chatting with Simon about his new film ‘When Autumn Falls’. Set amidst the crisp and golden vistas of Autumnal Burgundy, and featuring lots and lots of extremely chic knitwear, the film follows doting grandmother Michelle—whose family life is thrown into turmoil by an unfortunate accident involving some mushrooms. But was it an accident? All is not as cosy as it seems, and the dodgy  fungi aren’t all that’s toxic about this situation... Another week of top takes and high-quality witterings from the Good Doctors—not to mention correspondence from you lot. Don’t miss it! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Flow Review: 07:52 Francois Ozon Interview: 27:49 When Autumn Falls Review: 39:23 Laughter Lift: 48:40 The Alto Knights Review: 53:31 Snow White Review: 01:00:12 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. Our guests this week are Ashley Walters and Erin Doherty, stars of astonishing new Netflix series ‘Adolescence’. With each episode shot in one take, it follows the story of a family left in shock when their teenage son is arrested for murder. Doherty and Walters respectively play the psychologist and detective involved in the case, alongside Stephen Graham—who plays the boy’s father and co-created the series alongside Jack Thorne. Erin & Ashley chat to Simon about the technical feat of shooting the film, how absolutely terrifying the internet can be, and how terrifyingly good first-time teenage actor Owen Cooper definitely is. Mark reviews the series, plus all these new releases: ‘Black Bag’, Steven Soderbergh’s seductive spy comedy following Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married spooks trying to trace a leak whilst navigating a relationship that must have secrets; ‘Opus’, a fandom thriller about the long-awaited and frighteningly cultish return of fictional pop icon Moretti (John Malkovich), and Karan Kandhari’s madcap Mumbai-set black comedy about arranged marriage, ‘Sister Midnight’. Top quality correspondence from you as always, including a right telling off for Mark, news from ‘the internet’s stinkiest it girl’, and a hello to a bit more of Jason Isaacs than we bargained for in this week’s episode of White Lotus.... Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Sister Midnight Review: 08:47 Ashley Walters and Erin Doherty Interview: 25:55 Opus Review: 57:04 Laughter Lift: 50:51 Black Bag Review: 1:05:57 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s ‘Mickey 17’ release day, and Ben is chatting to Director Bong Joon Ho in today’s episode to celebrate. Starring Robert Pattinson as an expendable worker on a colonized ice planet, the new film from Korean cinema’s modern master sees protagonist Mickey ‘re-printed’ over and over again.  Frequently killed in his dangerous daily tasks, ‘human printing technology’ allows Mickey to be simply reborn, with his memories intact. But when he makes it back to base unexpectedly alive one day, he finds he’s already been reprinted—coming face to face with his latest iteration. His girlfriend may be loving it, but the law, upheld by Mark Ruffalo’s villainous Marshall, is not. Ben sits down with the ‘Parasite’ Oscar winner, and his legendary translator Sharon Choi, to unpack this dark comedy sci-fi satire... to name some of the genres this madcap movie might be. Nobody makes them like Director Bong. He reveals the secret real-life location of his ice-planet (complete with mountains of salt standing in for snow), the challenges of working with two Robert Pattinsons, and his obsession with his comfort-blanket iPad. Check out the ‘Now and Ben’ back catalogue for more conversations with cinema’s most exciting creative talents, including four-time Oscar winning director of ‘Anora’, Sean Baker,  ‘Peaky Blinders’ writer Steven Knight, and Hollywood royalty Angela Bassett. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. In this week’s Take we’re travelling back into the past and looking to the future with VR. Yes, we made Simon put on a VR headset thingy—and yes, we did laugh at him whilst he wandered blindly around the room thinking he was in 19th century Germany. That’s because he was experiencing ‘Trailblazer’, a VR experience telling the forgotten story of Bertha Benz, the woman behind the wheel of the world’s first automobile in the first road trip ever taken. Simon chats to the voice of Trailblazer, Star-Wars star Daisy Ridely and creator Eloise Singer. They talk about history’s forgotten women, Daisy’s forgotten BAFTA (surprise!), and whether we’ll all be swapping cinema tickets for VR goggles in the future... Plus reviews this week of ‘Twiggy’, Sadie Frost’s doc about the titular teenage model sensation and 60s icon; ‘One Of Them Days’—a comedy caper starring Keke Palmer and SZA as two broke best friends trying to raise a month’s rent after losing it to a deadbeat boyfriend—and Bong Joon Ho’s big follow-up to ‘Parasite’, ‘Mickey 17’. Starring Robert Pattinson as an ‘expendable’ worker in a barren ice colony, Director Bong’s latest sci-fi flick sees protagonist Mickey ‘reprinted’ over and over again each time he dies—until a duplicate begins to cause trouble. Find out if Mark thinks you should be heading to the cinema on the double! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Twiggy Review: 10:24 Daisy Ridley & Eloise Singer Interview: 25:19 One of Them Days Review: 43:28 Laughter Lift: 47:31 Mickey 17 Review: 52:37 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Begbie himself, and surely a frontrunner for British cinema’s scariest man (on screen only, we might add), is our guest this week—it’s Robert Carlyle. This time he’s playing staunchly moral councilor Sam Hagen in new Netflix drama ‘Toxic Town’. Penned by Jack Thorne (of course), and with a cracking cast of Jodie Whittaker, Aimee Lou Wood, Rory Kinnear and more alongside Carlyle, it tells the true story of the Corby poisonings. Following the closure of the town’s steelworks, mismanagement of toxic waste begins to affect the health of local mothers and their babies—who are dismissed by the council and must fight for justice. Robert unpacks his character, and gives us the screen zinger of the year that had us reaching for the birdsong button... Mark reviews ‘Toxic Town’, as well as Indian feelgood flick ‘Superboys of Malegaon’. The Hindi language film follows a gang of amateur filmmakers whose shoestring budget spoofs of their favourite Bollywood hits become a cult phenomenon. Plus, Gia Coppola’s ‘The Last Showgirl’--the story of a Las Vegas dancer’s fading glamour, starring Pamela Anderson in a critically acclaimed comeback performance. All the usual box office madness and top takes from our emergency mailers too. Don’t miss it! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Superboys of Malegaon Review: 09:24 Toxic Town Review: 44:10 Robert Carlyle Interview: 30:19 Laughter Lift: 49:30 The Last Showgirl Review: 55:53 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’ve got a bona fide icon for you in today’s Now & Ben—a movie star of four decades known for tackling tough female characters in films like ‘Boyz n the Hood’, ‘Malcolm X’, ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’ and ‘Black Panther’. She is the one and only Angela Bassett. This time, she plays US president Evelyn Mitchell in ‘Zero Day’, the new Netflix thriller series in which America is struck by a cyber attack. Managing the crisis, Bassett’s president re-enlists beloved ex-President Geroge Mullen (Robert De Niro) to help still the public panic and discover the mysterious perpetrators. Angela talks to Ben about the role and her longstanding talent for playing powerful women onscreen—including Michelle Obama in ‘The Simpsons’, of course. She tells Ben about the real women who have inspired her, plus we get the lowdown on working with De Niro—and fans of Kathryn Bigelow’s undersung millennium tech thriller ‘Strange Days’, listen up: we’ve got a treat for you... Listen out for more of Ben’s conversations with cinema’s most exciting creative talents dropping into the feed every ‘Now and Ben’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another show jam-packed with top takes from Simon & Mark—which are still eliciting your ‘quiet affirmative noises’... Reviews this week of The Monkey—a splattery and slanted dark comedy horror about a murderous wind-up toy from Longlegs director Osgood Perkins, and I’m Still Here—the Brazilian drama about ‘the disappeared’ under the military dictatorship in the 1970s that has taken the Oscar nominations by storm. Plus September Says, an unsettling drama of sisterly bonds, and a little bit of Captain America: Brave New World, since we were foiled by the screening schedule last week. This week’s guest is 90s New Black Realist cinema’s MVP—that’s Mario Van Peebles. Possibly our smoothest, coolest guest evs, he directed 90s classics New Jack City, Panther, Posse—and now Outlaw Posse. With it, he’s pushing the frontier in more ways than one, bringing us a classic western without the whitewashing as he follows a gang of black cowboys who have rejected the unjust laws of their time to become outlaws. He talks to Simon about Black Westerns, ‘Black Rodeo’—the BFI season celebrating the genre that launched earlier this month—and being part of an indie filmmaking dynasty with his father Melvin and son Mandela. Your verdicts from our inbox on all the big releases too—keep them coming! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): September Says Review: 08:46 Captain America: Brave New World Review: 19:24 Mario Van Peebles Interview: 27:02 I’m Still Here Review: 46:11 Laughter lift: 52:53 The Monkey Review: 55:22 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We hope this week’s podcast will earn your ‘quiet affirmative noises’--whatever they might sound like...??? Listeners to last week’s show may remember one correspondent’s story of a film eliciting this mysterious and elusive sound—and you’ve kindly sent in some examples to clear up this crucial matter for us. Mmhmm. Grown-up Aussie animation ‘Memoir of a Snail’ is first on Mark’s review slate this week--starring Sarah Snook and with a voice cast including Nick Cave and Jacki Weaver, the crafted stop-motion story follows the melancholic life of a reclusive, snail collecting misfit in 1970s Canberra. On a lighter note, to solve all your lovers’ tiffs about what genre to go for this Valentine’s Day movie night, a review of the romcom-slasher hybrid ‘Heart Eyes’. And last but certainly not least—’Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’, fourth instalment of the British romcom institution starring Renée Zellweger in which Bridget gets back to dating for the first time after the death of Mark (Colin Firth). Our guests this week are Stephen Graham and Malchi Kirby—who star in the Steven Knight-penned Victorian boxing drama ‘A Thousand Blows’, out next week. In it, a bulked-up Graham plays Henry ‘Sugar’ Goodson—the fearsome East End boxer and adversary of Kirby’s Hezekiah Moscow. Hezekiah arrives in 1800s London from Jamaica, hoping to fulfil his dream of becoming a lion tamer at the zoo—but finds himself at the heart of the city’s criminal underworld, orchestrated by Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), ‘Queen’ of the all-female crime gang The Forty Elephants. Simon chats to the stars about getting into the ring together in this gritty drama based on real historical figures, getting ripped, Jamaican heritage and more. Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Memoir of a Snail Review: 09:54 Stephen Graham & Malachi Kirby Interview: 26:19 Heart Eyes Review: 41:37 Laughter lift: 47:37 Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy Review: 52:44 You can contact the show by emailing [email protected] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Awards season spinning your head? The Good Doctors have got you covered... Welcome to our awards special, where we’ll be giving you the lowdown on all the big players in this years awards nominations, all in one super-Take from Simon & Mark. We’ve brought together reviews of the titles everyone’s talking about—like Emilia Pérez, The Brutalist, Nosferatu and more—and interviews with the filmmaking & acting talents behind them. Sean Baker, James Mangold, Robert Eggers, RaMell Ross, Ralph Fiennes & Stanley Tucci... we’ve got a list of names longer than a yawn-inducing acceptance speech. From the bottom of our hearts, thanks to our agent, our mums, God, and you loyal Wittertainees. Now go forth and impress your pals at the Oscars watch-party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices