Episode 9 Film 2012

This programme contains strong Hello and welcome to Film 2012. We

are live. If you want the get in touch the defails are on the screen.

Coming up on tonight's show: it's life on Mars for Taylor Kitchen,

John Carter. Good God, I'm on Mars. John Cusack enters the dark world

of Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven. And Robert Pattinson has a lust for

power in Bel Ami. Do you want to be the man who put down a Government?

Plus, Danny takes a look at the enduring influence of David Lynch's

masterpiece, Blue Velvet. First tonight, Disney's science

fiction epic, John Carter. Let them be crushed. This is a story based

on The Princess Of Mars, written by Edgar Rice-Burroughs. You killed

him with one blow. When I saw you I believed it was something new, can

come into this world. And he also had this extra ordinary ability

where he could kind of leap. It wasn't much more than that, but it

was just enough that you just felt like he was an extra special person.

Good God. I'm on Mars! He's lost his family. Through these events he

gets transported to Mars. On Mars he has another chance of love and

at finding that cause within himself. What happened to this

place? A new power threatens to destroy our city. That doesn't look

like a fair fight. The race is on, the med man race and the green man

race. They are at war with each. -- with each other. Tars Tarkis.

find a nomadic tribe with four arms. Captain John Carter, Virginia. And

you have the princess of Mars. You have to leave it to the women to

shine that light on himself again. He finds that motivation, if he

finds that, he finds love. You are John Carter of Earth?

mam. Author author is -- Dejah Thoris,

it is only through their journey together that she is vulnerable

enough to see him as a man. There is a lot going on on Mars.

Danny Leigh of Earth. One of us has got to be. What did you think of

it? One of the curses of Hollywood is film making by committee, where

everything you see has been passed through dozens of executives

working incredibly hard to make sure you don't see anything

remotely unpredictable or weird. This is not film making by

committee. It is very much the vision of one man. We saw Andrew

Stanton there. He's come up through Pixar. He's wanted to make this

film since he was a child. If you talk a precocious 8-year-old in the

1970s and gave them $250 million, which is what this film cost, they

would make something like this. The dialogue is terrible, the acting is

even worse. The good guy, he can jump high. The villain's super-

weapon is an electric blue death ray pointy finger. Despite or

possibly because of that I found it enjoyable. It is a $250 million B

movie with a streak of lunacy running through it. Will it be

compared to Avatar but it couldn't be more different. I think if

Avatar is a machine, this is a contraption. In 30 years people

will still be talking about John Carter. I have no idea what they

will be saying but they will be talking about it. How do you feel?

I can't say anything mean about Andrew Stanton, because he's

created some of my favourite films, and we'll be talking about his film

Wall-E later. Seeing Kieran in a Togo and lots of great actors

including Dominic West, in the sn The Wire, but this reminded me of

Flash Gordon. I see that. And a bit of Wonderwoman. I see that less.

love the babies. They were much more attractive but the whole thing

is hotchpotchy. Anybody who has seen The Phantom Menace like di

would prefer this for its bonkersness. We have to be honest

about this and say there are passages which are very dull here.

Visually it is set in an arid featureless landscape. That gets

tiring quickly. Between the lumpy storytelling and the scenery, it is

a test of your short term memory. Why does he have to go to the

sacred gates? That's a bit lame, but at the same time you have

scenes where John Carter is captured by the ten foot tall green

people. And he is half naked and they are having Martian talcum

powder. This is the most awesomely bizarre thing I've seen. That's

before we hear John Carter saying, "Good God I'm on Mars" as if he's

overslept on the train and is? Stoke. It is a deranged vision. We

don't have enough of those in cinema. Next, Bel Ami, starring

Robert Pattinson as a social- climbing lothario in 19th century

Paris. It also stars Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina

Let me buy you a drink. Paris is filthy with money. Why don't you

come to dinner, come and meet my wife. It's about this cut throat

young man who is very beautiful and discovers he has one commodity to

sell. He basically seduces powerful women up the tree of French society.

What is interesting? Well, I like enjoying myself. What do you enjoy?

Well, I don't know. Everything. think the women as they are all

perceived as nothing really by they are husbands and the people around

them. They want to acknowledge his adoration and they can see

immediately that he thinks they are more special than anyone else

thinks they are. And it works really well for him. He mansion to

persuade them to do things they wouldn't necessarily do otherwise.

I have something very important to tell you, something for your

advantage. It is about my husband. They are very political animals and

romance is a tool in this story. you want to be the man who put down

a Government? Or do you want to be a fool?

Weng people are sincere they tend to go wrong. It seems there is more

a system of arranged relationships in this story. Who is she?

Madeleine Forestier. You've chosen exactly the woman you need. It is

implyed in the movie that he really does love her but his ambition is

greater than his love, love is not enough for him. Everyone is baffled

by the fact he doesn't get his comeuppance, because in films these

days if someone does bad things they will be punished for it.

loved you. It is not enough to be loved. It is so clear to me. There

is no next life, and I am going to live.

Nice and pale coming out of a church. I think this story has been

told many times before. It is a brilliant story and a lovely tale

of somebody going in and social climbing and working their way,

using sex and all kinds of things. I don't think it totally works in

this. I don't think it works at all. He should be slightly more

interested in power. B, slightly more charming, and instead he is

petulant and not really smart enough. I don't know whether it is

his fault or the script's fault. I would say the women are brilliant.

Kristin Scott Thomas isn't in it a lot but when she is, she is

fantastic, and so is Christina Ricci. Anyone interested in set

design and clothes will love it. Part of the reason why Robert

Pattinson took this role was to shock the world and his Army of

fans. As soon as he comes on set and he's got greasy hair,

surrounded by 1890s good-time girls, it feels like a teenage boy

cranking up the music in his bedroom to irritate his mum. He has

to carry the whole movie. He's in pretty much every scene. And he is

trying to do something sut until a movie that's anything but the.

Whatever anyone thinks about Robert Pattinson there are other actors

struggling, the set design, and the cleavage, and Phillip Glenister's

whiskers. And this overfruity movie. I don't think you can blame Robert

Pattinson. No, but it will make you five minutes in go, wait, why

aren't I watching dangerous liaisons, watching this murky world

of closed doors and whispers. And he is just too spoilt I suppose. It

doesn't ring due. I will want to exempt Christina Ricci. She's had a

strange career since the glory years of Wednesday Adams. This is a

weird role and it reminds you of how good she can be - coquettish

and vulnerable. When she is good with Robert Pattinson, it comes to

life. Cinema history is littered with great movie stars who started

out as quite vapid teen heart- throbs. It has taken Brad Pitt 20

years to stop doing this all the time and become a measured calm

actor who has an Oscar nomination. Now it's time for the Top 5 and

this week Antonia counts down her favourite cinematic love rats.

We've all been one and we've all been in the clutches of one, but

who has tonne it best on screen? Here are my top five love rats. At

number five In The Company Of Men. A film about two guys taking their

revenge for their broken relationships by horribly

manipulating a young deaf woman. take a girl that time, just some

cord fed bitch who would practically mess her pants if you

sharpened a pencil for her. We both hit her, small talk, a dinner date,

flowers. And we just do it, youened me, upping the ante all the time.

Suddenly she's calling her mom and wearing make-up again. And we play,

on and on. One day out goes the rug and Jill, she just comes tumbling

after. In this scene Aaron Eckhart is forced to confess what he's been

up to. Are you playing a game with me? He later said he had to put on

three stone in order to disguise himself when the film came out to

stop women hurling abuse at him. can't keep a straight face, so,

lock it. Surprise! At number four, Body Heat. In this terrific sweaty

pastiche of a 1940s film noir two untrustry lovers do the dirty on

everyone else but how much are they love ratting each other. I want to

buy you a drink. I've told you, I've got a husband. I will buy him

one too. He's out of town. favourite kind. But Turner is

frightening. She's a hotted up love rat psychopath. I could never do

anything to hurt you. I love you. You've got to believe that. You are

experience, I can do anything. number three, Damage. Damage is

hands down one of my guilty pleasures. Jeremy Irons and Juliet

Binoche star as the greatest love rats of all time. She's engaged to

Jeremy Irons' son and yet they are hotly pursuing an affair which does

seem mysterious and meaningful and romantic until this tragic scene

demonstrates how revolting they are both being. Poor Rupert gaves, he

At number two, Reds, the true story of a radical American journalist

whose lover, played by Diane Keaton, has a brief affair with a

playwright played by Jack Nicholson. Are you keeping up? You're a lying

Polish whore. When she tells him she doesn't share his deep feelings

and in fact has gone off and married Warren Beattie, you can see

Nicholson curdling in front of you. What a heartbreaker you are.

sorry. Diane Keaton, love rat. At number one, Doctor Zhivago.

Sometimes you can't help but support someone in their love-

rattery. In Doctor Zhivago, Omar Sharief has the perfect, good, kind

wife who adores him and whom he adores back. Shall I get some tea?

Yes, do. And yet you still find yourself

hoping things are going to work out between him and his mistress Laura.

If only there were someone to look after you. Of course, if there were,

I'd be destroyed by jealousy. You simply forget that there is a

sweet, loyal, pregnant wife back at home - waiting.

A brilliant list. Uh-huh. Next, The Raven, a fictionalised account of

Edgar Allan Poe's last days. John Cusack stars as Po.

- Poe. Dear God. His murder was familiar to me, Edgar Allan Poe.

seems my writing has become the inspiration for an actual killer.

There had never been a film about Poe's life because it's very

depressing, so this gives you the best of both worlds. You get the

best stories and the highlights from Poe's life melded together in

this serial killer construct. challenge the brilliant mind of

Edgar Allan Poe a game of wits. I will kill again, and on that corpse

I will leave clues. Please!

We are in dire need of your unwholesome expertise.

Poe is this hyper-intellectual literal genius but who was also

writing these pulpy Saturday afternoon thrillers, you know, to

scare people, so it was this kind of great mixture of high-brow and

low brow, so I think we capture that in the movie. Are you up to

the task, Mr Poe? Four people are dead. The killer is taunting us.

Emily! No matter how this ends, I will kill him.

The reason I think he's iconic is he taps into this universal sense

of doom or despair or - but also mixed with an intense imagination,

so I think any actor would probably feel like they could play Poe or

want to play Poe. They may not do a good job at it, but he's almost

like a shadow figure. He's almost in your psyche. There is a part of

you that's drawn to self- destruction and drawn to doing the

wrong thing. Does any of this sound familiar to you, Mr Poe? But you're

talking about my story, a work of fiction.

I'm afraid I am not. Well, I think if you're going to

serve as Poe, you at least have to have one of the scenes that has a

decent amount of gore in it. His stories, if you read them, there's

lots of gore, whether it's murders in the room or the Pit and the

Pendulum. We went to Serbia, shooting at night in the winter.

That helped put you in the mood. It was pretty nasty.

Well, look, let's be honest - the reason this film exists is

somewhere in Hollywood about three years ago someone went to see

Sherlock Holmes then came in the next day and said, I know exactly

with a we should do - that with Edgar Allan Poe. That's fine. I get

that, and that should be a fun movie. The Raven is isn't funny.

It's actually one of the most miserable experiences I have ever

had in the cinema. One of the strength of Sherlock Holmes is this

seedy-eyed Victorian London. What you have here is this CGI 19th

century Baltimore which looks like the work experience kid did it up

in his lunch time hour and ever so often the director comes on with

his CGI bellows and constantly blows a bit of fog to make things

work better. It doesn't whatsoever. With Sherlock Holmes, you have

Sherlock host and Robert Downey Jr, this brilliant lunatic in this

incredible film. What you have in The Raven is Poe pushed to the ma

margins while they're trying to solve the world's most boring 19th

century murder case. He skullenings around with his beard and his

raccoon. This is a film which people think Edgar Allan Poe needs

to be made more interesting, and the way you do that is to give him

a raccoon. John Cusack is visibly depressed during this entire film.

I can see why - because it's not acceptable.

OK. Unacceptable - I hear. I have always quite liked Quincy. This is

not dissimilar with a bit of Dallas, bait of Patricia Cornwall, a lot of

heaving bosoms. I said after two minutes of Bel Ami to think, why

aren't I watching Dangerous Liaisons at home with a toasted

sandwich. You watch one minute of this and think, why aren't I

watching Silence of the Lambs. message is who this is for. If you

don't care about Edgar Allan Poe, what you have is a 19th century

pseudo, bad CSI. If you care about Edgar Allan Poe, you want to see

everyone involved in this film bricked up behind a wall. Let's

move on. Let's never speak of it again. We will move on. Blue Velvet

celebrates its anniversary this year. We take a look back at this

classic. There is, as you can imagine, some strong language.

# She wore blue velvet # A simple tale of young love in a

small town - what could possibly go wrong with that? You'll find the

answer in Blue Velvet, David Lynch's virtuoso story of a pair of

fresh-faced sweethearts, a torch singer and a psycho with a gas mask.

It's a troubling film to take I think. It's a film that looks at

the dark side of life. There is something troubling about David

Lynch which puts the film a cut above. The film's setting was

inspired by David Lynch's childhood town - out in the woods lies a

strange discovery. Stumbled on by the innocent but

curious Geoffrey Beaumont, it leads first to sweet-natured sandy

Williams, but then to another world of crime, violence, voyeurism and

perversion. Isabella Rossolini is brilliant,

and from the start, she's just really interesting - all of the

things she does in it seem completely uncliched, when she

first opens the door and just looks terrified. Yes? What is it? Pest

control. I got to do your apartment. Mmm. Awaiting Geoffrey is Dorothy

Valuence, a nightclub singer with a secret life. To some extent he

trespasses into the other world, if you like, and I think he quite

enjoys it. Later, he returns, but this time

uninvited, and from inside Dorothy's closet comes his first

encounter with the infamous Frank Hello, baby. Shut up. It's daddy.

Where's my bourbon? That's the joy of the film is Hopper. He tears off

that gas mask and reveals this incredibly black heart. Baby wants

to -- don't you look at me! Dennis Hopper was newly sober after years

exiled in Hollywood reading Lynch's script. Calling the director, he

demanded, "I have to play Frank. I am frank". But if Frank became one

of the most unforgettable bad guys in cinema, the sickness was

everywhere in Blue Velvet. It was like every strange perverse impulse

that had been kept just out of sight in a Hitchcock movie had

suddenly been allowed to come bubbling to the surface. Geoffrey

is like Frank. He watched it and didn't intervene. Later Geoffrey

hilts her like Frank does. There is that terrifying scene when he turns

around and says, "You're like me." You're like me.

I think the film's just great on each character containing

competency - even Sandy, who is a virginal character, is also a

voyeur, also listening into her father's conversations.

For Lynch, Blue Velvet was an intensely personal film. McLachlan

modelled his whole performance on his director. While the film was

full of what would become significant David Lynch signatures

- dark forces run amock. As a child, Lynch had seen a naked woman near

Dorothy Vanence? For me what I found fascinating about the film is

how much people come out of darkness into the light. It happens

with Sandy. It happens with Dorothy. It happens with Geoffrey when he

goes down to the family into the front room. You get this sense of

darkness and light and people trying to move towards the light.

He put his disease in me. "He put his disease in me" - wow. "He put

his disease in me" she says again at the end just in case the mother

and daughter didn't hear. He put his disease in me. To me, it's like

memories of Lynch's childhood and his weird awakening and a kind of

sexual awakening things that happens. It's the two sides of

Lynch - I am assuming, sorry, David, if that's not true.

# A candy-coloured cloud sandman # Tiptoes through my room every

night # A sick wallow in sleaze, fumed one

of several outraged critics, while walk-outs in screenings were common.

If I was shocked by it, you're being pulled in so many ways and

become that person who is watching, not helping, but kind of enjoying

it, and that reflects quite badly on the viewer. It doesn't placate

anyone. It doesn't pretend that life is sweet, and it doesn't

really have any easy answers. you get the sense people are

thinking things up in order to shock you, it's just tedious or

depressing or kind of lonely feeling, but you kind of get the

sense of this is authentic, and that's a quite terrifying thing to

witness. # Blue velvet #

But maybe the truly shocking thing is as well as being a detective

story and a coming-of-age drama, Blue Velvet really is a film'll

about love. Dennis Hopper called Frank one of the great male leads

and the question one asks is deep down maybe he and Dorothy are meant

for each other. What David Lynch is good at is not having clear-cut

heroes and villains, that in a way Frank's love is completely all-

consuming. Blue Velvet's influence saw its vision of the dark side of

suburbia seep into countless movies and TV show, but maybe the biggest

tribute you can pay it is, 25 areas on it's still a film it's

impossible not to have an opinion about or still, just occasionally,

to see in your dreams. # Blue velvet

I just want to watch more of that - brilliant contributors! Anyway,

next, Michael Winterbottom's Trishna.

Eight or nine years ago I was doing a film called Colt 46, and when I

was there it struck me the kind of things that were happening there in

Indian society were quite similar to what was happening in the world

of Tess in Hardee's novel. How is it going? Good. Have you

tried listening to them? When we meet Jay, he's in a gap year with

friends travelling around India, then we understand he's going to

have to stay on and run a hotel for his father because his father has

bought some hotels in Rajasthan. It's at one of these he meets her.

You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and

blow did. He obviously loves India and travelling around with his

mates, but now he's staying on in this busy, corporate role of

running hotels, I think it becomes even more important for him to

connect to something innocent, pure and authentic. I think the closest

See? Easy. The kind of conservative social setting of rural Rajasthan

means they can't have an open relationship. It is eggshells they

have to walk on. It is tricky for them to spend time alone together.

I can't stop thinking about you. That's why they try to escape that

by going to Bombay. The character of Trishna in the film is passive.

I don't want her to be passive just because she's a woman. It is part

of her character, and it is one of the frustrations of her character.

Why don't you want to be a dancer? Have you been telling tales on me.

You don't like Trishna's dancing? That's how we like it.

When you've got this extreme juxtaposition of modernity and

traditional elements in society, you've got these massive class

gulfs. Can you bring them? That's what Jay and Trishna are trying to

do. Can they find common ground? Can they find a meaningful

relationship? The Kama Sutra says there are three heroines that you

can make love to: a maid, a single lady and a courtesan. Which one are

you? I loved the idea of Tess of the D'Urbervilles shot and set in

modern-day India. India is beautiful, the rough and the smooth.

If soundtrack is fantastic. I think, I loved this film. The problem

comes when the character of Jay has to encapsulate two people, the good

and the bad if you like, Alec and Angel. It is his flip that for me

is the thing which jarred. I feel pretty much the same. Michael

Winterbottom is an unpredictable director. I don't think he's

capable of making a boring film. As a movie about India Trishna is the

best movie about India I've seen in a long time. To remake Tess of the

D'Urbervilles and relocate it over there works beautifully. Not

because he is very good at people's real lives and how harsh they can

be, but because he is good at both. It feel as million miles from a

tourist brochure. On that level it is great. I have the same problem

with it, that if you know Tess of the D'Urbervilles at all, it is a

classic love triangle. He's made a second big decision, to fold the

two male characters into one. That puts a huge weight on the actors.

The big decision about moving to India works like a charm. The

exemption about folding the two characters feels a little bit like

A-level course work but on a lavish scale. It is too much work to put

on an actor like Riz Ahmed, who is such a gifted boy.? Four Lions he

was someone who was intensely likeable and capable of bad things.

But this is a jump too far. Trishna is a great film but I'm going for

John Carter. How about you? Blue Velvet. Now it's time for

Director's Cut. This week Andrew I always loved this concept of some

old-fashioned music opening the movie against the stars. I was

literally scrolling through and I hit -- through iTunes and I hit on

Put On Your Sunday Clothes. The more I investigated the lyrics I

realised the kismet of it. It is about two guys that have never gone

outside of their small town and they want to know what it is like

to truly live life for one day and kiss a girl. That's parallel to

what this little guy wants and he doesn't even know it.

# A moment to be loved # I always pictured this little lost

janitor wandering amongst the detritus and the debris of who used

to occupy the place and not really knowing that history. I could not

drop the appeal of this character that I didn't really know yet. I

hadn't really met it and yet I already really cared for it. He

really is the ultimate sound designer. He literally explored for

months. I would come in and it was sort of

like an audio test. I would just go, that feels like

Wall-E. That feels like EVE. One of my most favourite sounds will

always be just the voice he discovered for EVE. It is this

weird alchemy of a human voice plus him plus sound effects and music

For a long time I had this singular eye kind of idea. But then I

thought it was too limiting. Like I needed a character that could carry

not a short but a whole movie, that would have a range of emosts and

issues. So I was at a baseball game and somebody lent me their

binoculars. I turned it around and made it go sad, mad and happy. I

thought, "Oh, my God, I did this all the time as a kid" and I

realise there had is the extra level of subtlety that I needed to

carry a whole movie. What happened was that we had made

a wrong turn right at the end of the second act, when they ended up

in this trash compactor area. I had made EVE be potentially destroyed.

He had to do everything he could to repair her. I had gotten it

kpwhreetly flipped. It was one of those -- completely flipped. It was

one of the those last-minute things where the story told us.

Wall-E? Come on. Wall-E spent all this time out of just being this

honest thing and has planted a seed in everything else and now it is

time for him to be disabled and for everyone to rise to the occasion

based on how he's touched them. That suddenly made a huge

difference on the whole movie. That's part of the thrill and the

scaryness of making movies. Evil? Why? You are not!

# And that is all that love's about That's all for tonight. In next

week's show we'll be reviewing Contraband, We Bought A Zoo, 21

Jump Street, and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia. Playing us out tonight,

Neighbourhood Watch. It's in cinemas this August. Thank you and

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 43 seconds