Episode 16 Film 2011 with Claudia Winkleman

Hello and welcome to Film 2011. We are live if you want to get in

touch. The details are on the screen. Coming up tonight: Brad

Pitt is looking for a home run in Moneyball. If we win with this team,

we change the game for good. Everything is at stake for Rachel

Weisz in the The Deep Blue Sea. not blaming you. There is dark

comedy in 50/50. Me? Yes. That doesn't make any sense. I don't

smoke. I don't drink. I recycle. Plus Stephen Frears talks about the

making of My Beautiful Laundrette. First, Moneyball, starring and

produced by Brad Pitt, based on the book by Michael Lewis. It is the

story of Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland As. There

are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there's 50 feet of crap

and then there's us. Welcome to Oakland! My job is to take this

team to the Championship. I need more money. It is a classic

underdog story. You have a team that has a $40 million payroll.

It's never going to work. It is an unfair game. Billy is in the

process of trying to figure out when the odds are stacked against

you how do you even the playing field. Your goal should be to buy

wins. Who are you? When I meet Brad's character I have all these

ideas that are pretty pradical and pretty frowned upon. -- radical and

pretty frowned upon. People are overlooked for a variety of biased

reasons - age, appearance, personality. Of the 20,000 notable

players for us to consider, there is a Championship team of 25 people

that we could afford. Everyone else in baseball undervalues them.

It is the saying the Earth is round instead of the Earth is flat. He

makes me the youngest assistant GM ever. We are going to shake things

up. Tell them. Want me to speak? When I point to you, yes. This is

the new direction of the Oakland As. We are card counters and we are

going to turn the odds on the casino. You don't put a team

together with a computer. Adapt or die! Billy had the powers but the

Peter character was the arsenal. They needed this together to pull

this off. Billy says he will pay for him himself. When he sells him

for more next year, he is keeping the profit. They are these two

unlikely heroes, two Davids versus the one hundred Goliaths. We will

call you back. Come on! They were courageous and they changed the way

people thought about this stuff. are doing something unexpected and

special and the whole city is feeling it. If we win with this

team, we change the game for good. It was never a movie about baseball.

It was about how to break people's expectations of what you are

capable of by original thinking and courageous action. This better work.

I'm kidding you. Danny, I don't understand sport.

But I love, really love a sports film. You have a glint in your eye.

I'm going to, if you are awake, brilliant - hi dad - if you are

near a computer tweet in or e-mail. Let me say some sports films. Tin

Cup. Come on. Rocky. Field of Dreams. If you build it, you know

what is going to happen. True Blue. The Natural. There are hundreds and

thousands. I don't know why I am talking about sports films because

Moneyball is not a film about sport. Brad Pitt, it's beautiful, it's an

exciting film. It is not a sports film but I would recommend it?

Moneyball, whatever it is, it is not a sports movie. It is almost as

if they had a post-it note on their head with a list of things they

weren't going to do. There wasn't going to be the stadium clock,

there wasn't going to be a cruel injury to the star player, there

wasn't going to be a single moment of slow-motion. Fine, what's left?

What we have got instead is this weirdly gripping film about the

business of sport and the wound Rouse statistics. If anyone is

still with us after that, it is also an excellent character study -

- wonderous statistics. It is about Billy Beane. I think it is that, it

is on that level that it works best. The thing about Billy Beane is that

he doesn't like baseball either. His life has been wrapped up with

baseball. When the passion is flowing and when the crowds are

screaming, all the stuff that a sports movie would revel in, he

likes to work out and he's kept up- to-date with the results on the

phone. That is how he relates to the game. It is a business. He

likes getting the better of people. He is not a baseball fan. It's

about taking on the old guard, is it? That is what is so exciting.

Brad Pitt almost said it is about taking on the old guard of

Hollywood as well. A star is worth $20 million but it is looking at

what people are really worth. It is worth saying Philip Seymour Hoffman

is brilliant in it? Also I want to mention Aaron Sorkin. These

individuals are symbols that are something a bit bigger. I don't

know if it's got the same pop as The Social Network. It has got Brad

Pitt. As a younger actor, he used to be self-conscious. He was trying

to prove himself as an actor. It was always the hand motions. He's

settled into his own skin a bit more. We will probably talk a lot

about film stars on tonight's show. Moneyball wouldn't have happened

without him. It wouldn't be half as interesting without him. I felt it

was Sorkin-light. If you are a big fan and you love The West Wing and

you are waiting for a "this is what it means to be American to play

baseball" - there is none of that. You want to eat up the words?

are right. For a confirmed Sorking fan, it's still recommended. Yes.

Next, Terence Davies's adaptation of Terence Raligan's play The Deep

It's about love. It's about three people who want different kinds of

love from each other which is a kind of odd relationship, but that

is what love can do and does do to you. It's about a woman who leaves

security, she leaves her husband for a younger man who has no money

and who is mentally unstable in many ways. She just falls in love.

Freddie, darling, would you come home with me, please? No, I will

not. You did not leave your husband. She finds sex at 40. It's

overwhelming. It makes her experience a revelation and the

revelation is that there can be sensual... I still love you. When I

was looking for people, I saw Rachel by accident. I looked at her

name. I Raj my manager and said, "Have you heard of someone called

Rachel Weisz?" "You are the only one who hasn't." She read it, she

rang me and she said I would do it. I read the play when Terence

offered me this film. He did a beautiful adaptation of it. I know

what it felt like, no primary colour for instance. Everything was

washed out and really rather faded. I was in houses like that - dark,

one light, that was it. I wanted to get that over more than anything

else. A lot of people don't like what I do. One woman jumped up and

said, "Why are you filming so slow and depressing?" I said it was a

gift! It always leads to something ugly. What would you replace it

with? A guarded enthusiasm. It's safer. But much duller. The Deep

Blue Sea is an adaptation of the Terence Ratigan play from the 1950s.

I think that is a bit unfair. For a start, I don't know what is wrong

with that. It is more than very well filmed. It is beautifully

filmed as cinema. Terence Davies, this is his territory, the early

'50s. He's got this - he mentioned "luminous" - a good use of words.

It was shabby as well. He brings that sense of 1950s and he brings

the sense of London to life as well. So I think it's very wide of the

mark to suggest that this is just a film with a play where they have

parked the camera and let the actors do the rest. I don't think

anyone but Terence Davies could have made this movie. More power to

him. I thought it was beautiful, like you. I thought it was haunting.

I thought Rachel Weisz was brilliant. That is a very difficult

woman to pull off. Somebody who you believe because you are shouting,

"Go for the bloke with the nice library and the fire who will love

you forever! Are you mad?" She does it whole heartedly, she totally is

believable. Also what I love, I have to mention this, Barbara who

plays her mother-in-law, she might be the most terrifying character

you will see all year? I hear you. The set is so rich and detailed

that it almost overwhelms the play a bit. You are wrapped up in the

creek of the leather arm share that it distracts you from what is going

on. I will disagree with you about Rachel Weisz. It is a very

difficult part to play. I don't quite buy it. I do... What? She

loves him. Tom Hiddleston is incredibly well cast here. He nails

perfectly that idea of playing the charismatic idiot. If you want to

see a melodrama, see this instead! Top five time. This week, Chris

picks his all-time favourite sports films which do contain some strong

language. Movies and sport make a dream

pairing. There is an inherent drama in sport that movies have been

perfecting for years now. Here is my top five. At five, it's Escape

To Victory. The Germans are powerful. Football has not been

well served on the big screen. For his movie, John Huston drafted in

some of the best players of all time - the likes of Pele and

Sylvester Stallone! You can't helped but be swept along because

Pele does stuff like this. At four, it's Any Given Sunday. I am totally

baffled by American Football. But this three-hour epic is on this

list for one reason - Al Pacino's famous locker room speech. It's a

We claw with our finger nails to that edge, we know when we add up

all those inches, that's going to make the difference between winning

and losing. It's a speech that's been used by

real life football managers, none of whom can match Al Pacino's

delivery. Then again wo, can. At number three it's rocky VI. Why?

Because it's the cheesiest film of all time. It's a film which dared

at the height of the Cold War to unite America and Russia by getting

a capitalist and Communist together and making them fight. It's a film

in which Dolf Lund gren says. I must break you. At number two the

Hustler. How much am I going to win tonight? Most sport movies aren't

even about sport. Ten grand, I'm going win ten grand in one nights.

OK, yes, it's about pool. But it's about overcoming personal demons

and more besides. In this speech, Paul Newman sums up what it feels

like to be blessed with genius. of a sudden I have will in my arm.

The pool cue is part of me. It's a piece of wood, it's got nerves in

it. I feel the roll of those balls, you don't have to look, you just

know. I know, Paul. I know. Number one, it's Dodgeball. It propelled

the little known sport of Dodgeball onto the global stage. It pits

Vince Vaughn against Ben Stiller's Dwiet Goodman. There's a last

minute winner, there's a moment of doubt before the ultimate triumph

and a team of miss fits, while being amazingly funny.

I'm really sorry. Are you all right? Why would you hit a girl?

Why? I am so sorry, are you OK? my money, it's the funniest sports

movie of all time. At the end of the day, you have to

be pleased with that. This is going to run and run.

yes. We've had so many tweets I can't read them all out. Chariots

of fire, Gerry Maguire, quite a lot for The Big Blue. No an mall

lympics. A comedy now about cancer, yes I just said that, starring

Jonathan Levine and Seth Rogen. -- Joseph Gordon-Levitt. A tumour?

Yes. Me? Yes. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I recycle. How do you

feel right now? Fine. I can't remember being so calm in a long

time Would you describe what you're feeling as a kind of numbness?

would describe it as fine. It's a comedy about a young guy who gets

cancer and how it affects his life and the people around him. I think

I'm going to throw up. Open your eyes. Look at me, all right? What

kind of cancer snfpblts it's some rare kind of cancer. What's it

called? Swanoma... I had a massive tumour in my spine, and secretary-

general and I are long time good friends. He went through the whole

deal with me. What are your odds? looked it up and it says 50/50, but

that's the internet. It's not that bad. That's better than I thought.

You're going to be fine. Young people beat cancer all the time.

Every celebrity beats cancer. am ends up comforting the people in

his life maybe more than they comfort him. Everyone sort of

freaks out and he has to be like "Are you owe ka. I'm sorry this is

happening to you." I'm moving in. No. No. I'm your mother Adam.

Exactly, that's why. Mum, mum. You really think a girl's going to go

for me because I have cancer? Help me help you get laid.

think that would work? While he was still sick, we'd were at a bar one

night. He was having one of the odd interactions with people when they

found out he had cancer. It's your hook man. It's what you've got.

that's the first thing I say, "Hello I have cancer?" That's what

makes you different and sets you apart. You joke about a guy gets

cancer and his best friend uses it to do all the stuff he always

wanted to do. Great song. Totally. I have cancer. I was wrong. It was

weird. We thought there should be a movie that showed the lighter side

to the experience. It can be sad rbgts tragic and trying, difficult.

But a movie that exposes the dysfunction and find a way to

infuse humour into the cancer experience.

I really liked it. I cried. I thought it would be very smaltzy,

but it's not. Parts of it are properly out-loud funny. The way he

tells his parents that he's sick is properly clever. It was a really

good film. It's funny, a cancer comedy, it's a tight rope act from

the start. You're thinking, is the film going to make it across? Lots

of films wouldn't. He would topple off and either give up the comedy

halfway through or there would be a misjudgment of taste and decency,

which would be so horrific that it would end someone's career. No-one

wants to see the Hangover on a cancer ward. It makes it across. A

lot of the credit will go to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, deservedly so for a

fine performance. The script is the star here. We saw the script writer

talking about how he drew from real experience for the story. That

gives the story a kind of power. Beyond that, he has a really kind

of canny sense of when to play funny and when not. He realises

that the funniness comes from other people's reactions and people not

knowing what it do or say, even professionals. He also knows when

to stop. He doesn't do it, he keeps the funny coming for an unusually

long time, but when he stops it's a powerful moment. You end up with a

rare beast, the feel-good movie that may make you feel good at end.

It's worth mentioning the supporting cast, Anna Kendrick is

fantastic and Anjelica Huston. And you like when he's having the

treatment. There's a couple of nice scenes when Joseph Gordon-Levitt's

character meets Philip Baker Hall. They are almost throw away scenes,

but so beautifully handled that they're the film at its best.

Cary Grant died 25 years ago this month and Antonia looks back on his

life and work and what made him so special.

Born in 1904 into a working class family in Bristol, Archibald

Alexander Leach left home at 15 and joined a troupe of akro bats. He

travelled to New York and then Hollywood. He starred opposite the

likes of Mae West who said something rauk us to him in 1933.

Why don't you come up some time and see me. I'm home every evening.

Yeah, but I'm busy every evening. Busy? So what are you trying to do,

insult me? He was looking for work in the early 30s. They were looking

for faces. If there was one thing he had was a great face. They

started to use him opposite some of their most glamorous leading ladies.

So Marlene Dietrich for instance. Any time you have a moment to spare,

I'd be glad to drop in. I heard you. An embryo of Cary Grant emerges,

it's a work in progress. This is the opening paragraph in that film.

Grant was a physical comedian. As a child he was obsessed with the

keystone cops and that combined with his early training as a

gymnast meant he liked to move his body in a witty, graceful way.

There's an unforgettable moment in Holiday when he did a somersault

for the sheer pleasure of being physically gifted. You know me

fellas, when I feel a worry coming on, you know what I do... There!

And then the worries are over. He combined all these different

facets of star per sown yaz that he saw when he arrived in Hollywood.

He was a fan of Douglas Fairbanks with his dashing persona. There are

hints of that. Throw in a kind of cheekiness and his circus

background gives hints of it too. He's able to inject a sense of play

into potentially staid or talky material and always seems light on

his feet. It wasn't until the mid- 1940s that he came into his own as

the slapstick Prince charming in screwball comedies, with his

entirely made up transatlantic, rich Playboy voice, he was a genius

with farcical banter, most beautifully opposite Katharine

Hepburn. You lied to me. No... was a reduck lus story. I don't

believe you. You have to believe me. It's part of your unbridled

imagination once more. There's a great exchange of wise cracks and

quips. It's a dance they do. He had the perfect rhythm for those kind

of films that required a cha-cha- cha rhythm to it. It's almost like

an extension of his physical dexterity and agility that he

should be so agile with his tongue. I don't like leopards. Think of him

as a house cat. I don't like cats either. Stand still. Don't be

nervous. Off screen there were rumours about his sexuality. On

screen he managed to transmit a deep affinity with his leading

ladies. You always felt he wanted their company as much as their body.

That made him so sexy. He was the supreme object of desire. There's a

sense in which his female leads are kind of like playmates for him, not

in a kind of Playboy bunny sense, but in the sense that they gently

mock each other and the women mock his reserve. He mocks their

overtalkiness or whatever or their overexuberance. Out of This Isn't

Everything You Are great chemistry is born. Look at Ingrid Bergman

virtually RAFish him in this scene. I have a chick anyone the ice bomb

and you're eating it. What about the washing up afterwards? We'll

eat it with our fingers? Don't we need any plates? Yes. One for you

and one for me. Get in line. Even Katharine Hepburn came over in

Charade. How about getting out of here, come on, out. Won't you come

in for a minute? No, I won't. don't bite, you know. Unless it's

called for. How would you like a spanking? How would you like a

punch in the nose? If you compare him to Clark Gable. Gable's a man,

he was a leading man would wanted to rip off your clothes and drag

you to bed. Cary Grant wanted to stay up all noigt and talk to you.

Alfred Hitchcock exploited the fact that Cary Grant looked like a guy

who could do what he wanted. So droll, urban and sophisticated.

Might he be a bad guy too? He went that way. I think he got off.

Thank you. Quite all right. Seven parking tickets. Oh. I think it's

terribly interesting that Hitchcock who didn't have a lot of use for

actors, except they were a necessary evil, that Cary Grant was

the only actor I ever loved. Everyone agrees that he was the

greatest film star of all time. I think some people undervalue what a

good actor he was. He did not really do much for the craft of

acting in terms of innovation, however, what he did was he created

something more than an actor. He created Cary Grant, a man, that

people aspire to today. There's no doubt he was a complicated man. He

binged on hallucinogenics, he married five times. At 62 he

retired, perhaps it got too hard being carry groont -- Cary Grant.

Because everybody wanted to be him. Even Cary Grant said he wanted to

be Cary Grant. Brilliant. Next, Resistance

starring Riseboroughise and Michael Sheen.

The invasion continues to advance north and west. We have established

an observation post in this valley. Resistance is the version of what

might have happened had the Nazi invasion been successful in 1945 in

Great Britain. It's told from the perspective of a small, Welsh

valley. Is your husband at home? If you tell him of my visit when he

returns, I will be most grateful. My character wakes up one day and

her husband's gone and each man in the village is gone.

The civilian must not do nothing which will be considered slightest

help to the enemy. I appreciate that. My character is in a constant

inner conflict between following the orders that he was given and

doing the things that he feels are right morally. I never thanked you

for helping me. You should hate me. Unusually heavy snow comes in

during the winter and German soldiers help the women run the

farms and this uneasy truce develops between the women of the

valley and the German soldiers. know what happens to collaborators,

do you? We must leave. I can't leave. If you stay now, you die.

Trying to deal with the question of collaboration, the nature of those

two, how they work hand in hand sometimes, that feels like a very

contemporary discussion to be having at this moment in time.

the choices that we make that will decide the nature of our resistance

to nature, of our survival. Our choices will be the mark of who we

Every bit as Moneyball doesn't want to be a sports movie, Resistance

doesn't want to be a war movie. The Germans have invaded Britain in

1945, they steam into Wales. Resistance is a film of meaningful

glances and silences and ailing livestock. It unfolds incredibly

slowly. It is a strange criticism for me to make. The majority of my

favourite films are films in which nothing happens very slowly. There

is a difference between slowness and a film building to a mood and

slowness when it is ponderous. For me, Resistance is more often than

not ponderous. There was one scene where I thought the film had

stopped on screen. That can't be good. I liked it much more than you.

I found it moving and ponderous, correct, but I love Andrea

Riseborough, so I could watch her looking sad for hours. She does a

lot of that! I also love Wales, Danny. It is my favourite location

for a holiday, almost. So it looks so incredibly beautiful. I was

overwhelmed by the landscape? hear you. Wales looks fantastic.

Not sure the point of the film should be to make Snowdonia look

attractive even when occupied by Nazis. I hear you about Andrea

Riseborough. She is a film star. She's not found the film yet. I

don't know, maybe I'm a bad person, but after the 15th shot of Andrea

Riseborough looking concerned, I wanted a load of sheep to start

driving a clown car around! LAUGHTER This is me. OK. I don't

think that is your film of the week. What is it? It is very difficult.

It's always good to have Terence Davies in the cinemas. I'm going to

say 50/50. You? Moneyball with bells on! We are covered. Now it is

time for Director's Cut. Stephen Frears talks to us about My

Nothing but a toilet in a youth club! Constant boil on my bum.

remember the joy, the pleasure and the intelligence, you know, it was

everything that I liked doing. It was a very, very intelligent film

and it was everything that I love. It was enormously enjoyable. And

then it changed our lives. I saw four actors - Tim Roth, Daniel,

Gary Oldman and Ken Branagh. Daniel was top of the crumpet list. The

girls squealed. I'm dead impressed by all this. You were the one at

school, the one they liked? All of them liked me. I need to raise

money to make this place good. I want you to help me with that. I

want you to work here with me. funny and good characters. And told

you something new. It was both educational as well as entertaining.

It's everything you want. I didn't realise that the gay theme was

going to be quite so sensational and sort of what took it around the

world. So I didn't find that particularly original. I thought it

was very, very good, believe it or not on Thatcherite economics. We

made it in complete innocence and we made it with a lot of joy and

with very little care. No, that's the wrong word - we made it with

immense care. It was very carefree. I remember coming down to the set

and there was a crane there, "Why was there a crane here?" "You

ordered it." There is a shot that comes down over the launderette. I

invented that on the spot. Some days things worked! It is all to do

with railway lines. I will make sure he is fixed up with a good

business future. Marriage? working on it. Is Tania a

possibility? Mmm! Where the hell are you going?! We sent some boy

out to find a house that was nearest to several railway lines. I

said let's build a balcony so we got even nearer! The trains became

a theme. We had a lot of trouble with the ending. I kept saying it

had to have a happy ending because these characters, you can't turn

the audience away depressed. It only gets happy in the last ten

seconds, only in a very eccentric way. It is very interesting, he had

working with him Hans Zimmer, the most successful composer in the

world, and he was the boy in the backroom. Stanley used to sit in

the front room and Hans was working out all that funny man in white

suit sort of music. Nobody had any idea that a film this scruffy -

there are people walking around the streets, who would go and see a

film about a gay Pakistani in a launderette? It touched people.

can see more from that interview on the Film 2011 website. That is all

for tonight. Next week, we will be reviewing The Thing, Romantics

Anonymous and Happy Feet 2. Playing us out is The Descendants, directed

by Alexander Payne starring George Clooney. It is in cinemas January

2012. Thank you for watching and good night. My friends think I live

in paradise. I haven't been on a surf board in 15 years. 23 days ago

my wife was launched from a powerboat and hit her head.

might not be able to hear this. She was lonely. Who is he? I would like

to know who the guy is that my wife was seeing. I have always been the

back-up parent. I don't know what to do with her! With Elizabeth in

the hospital, my daughters are testing me. This is Sid. He will be

with me. I will be more civil with him around. Don't ever do that to

me again! What would you do if you were me? I would beat him with a