Episode 4 Film 2013

Hello and welcome to Film 2013 with me, Claudia Winkleman.

And me, Danny Leigh. We're live and if you want to get

in touch, then please tweet or e- mail, the details are on the screen

now. On tonight's show:

Denzel Washington is on a high in Flight. We've got to roll it!

The Roosevelts meet the Royals in Hyde Park On Hudson.

And Sly is back in Bullet To The Head.

And we also look at horror film Antiviral.

First, tonight, Flight, directed by Robert Zemeckis. It stars Oscar-

nominated Denzel Washington. Good morning. Good morning. Here is your

manifest. Let's get them tucked in. He is a pilot with some issues. He

has an extreme way of relaxing and he has to face his demons. We are

in a dive! Everybody in brace positions. Listen to me, trim us

nose down. Their plane crashes in the first 20 minutes of the movie.

Then it is about something house. Denzel Washington's character is

numb. It is a character study of a man who is an alcoholic. How you

feeling? Looked like you pulled some kind of move up there.

plane fell apart at 30,000 feet. Why do we need a lawyer? You had

alcohol in your system. That could be life in prison. It is a story of

a man who has to come to terms with his humanness and his human

imperfect nature and that is a universal theme. That is something

that we all have to grapple with, you know. We are all in a state of

having to be reborn as our life goes on. That is what the film is

about. I want to talk about the days leading up to the accident.

drank the night before the flight. Does he know he is going to jail?

It is a lie. It was a strong script and that is rare to read a really

good script with a complex character and a unique story. I

hadn't read anything like this, or seen a guy like this, I definitely

hadn't played one like that. It was a no-brainer. I called my agent and

said, "What's next?" So when they called and said, "Robert Zemeckis

is interested." I was like, "Wow!" There was a mechanical issue with

the plane. What you and I know, this was an act of God. I'm going

to fight to get them to add "act as God" as one of the probable causes.

A really good movie is a perfect blend of truth and spectacle. I

think that is true. We go to movies to be entertained. If it is

entertaining, it is the perfect way to sort of allow a bit of our human

truth to seep in so when a movie does both, when it entertains and

is thought-provoking, they are the movies I'm most attracted to.

trying to save your life. What life?! We have lost power. Brace

for impact. No-one could have landed that plane like I did.

is a very good shot. What did you think? If you are a nervous flyer,

don't worry. The plane crash will reduce you to a wreck. It puts you

in there with the screaming and the vomiting and the flying hand

luggage. The film is in control of itself. It moves at its own pace.

It turns into something which is fluent and powerful and grown-up.

What did you think? Thank you. Denzel Washington, this is all

about him. He is so magnificent in this. The supporting cast were

great. If he had been off his game, it wouldn't have been the film it

was. I thought it was excellent. There were a few gripes. What else

did you think? It is a fine performance from Denzel Washington,

not because he is magnetic and not because he is playing an alcoholic

so convincingly that you can smell it on him but he is doing both at

once. He's also someone who needs to have two lines of coke to get

themselves started in the morning! He is the key to the movie. He

holds it together. I'm pleased he is up for an Oscar. He is so good

at being a film star, we forget how good an actor he can be. My gripe

is that half-way through, did you feel that you knew how it was going

to end? That was my only problem. Did you think, "It is going this

way."? I didn't. I think what saves the movie from worthiness is you

don't - maybe it is me - I didn't know what was coming next. Credit

to the script for that and to Robert Zemeckis who has had an

interesting career. He's made some questionable films in the last few

years, but also some fine ones. The most recent being Castaway starring

Tom Hanks. This Flight reminds me of that a little bit. I don't know

if Robert Zemeckis has shares in a bus company! It is another big

mainstream Hollywood movie that is unusually honest and smart. This is

all very impressive. My only gripe is there is gratuitous use in one

scene of Piers Morgan. We love you! Next, Bill Murray stars as Franklin

D Roosevelt in Hyde Park On Hudson. They just left Beacon. Good. It

won't be too long. No King of England had ever visited America

before. So nice of you to come. Forgive me for not getting up.

he invited them here to the country where we could all relax. It is

about the first-ever visit by a reigning British monarch to North

America and he went there 12 weeks before the outbreak of the Second

World War on a mission. He was charged with a mission to tilt

American public opinion towards helping us defeat Hitler. You know

how important this is? You are not going to let the side down, don't

worry. Our bit of it is about a state visit to Roosevelt's summer

residence at Hyde Park On Hudson. Roosevelt is having an affair with

his cousin and his wife is gay and his mother is cross that he is

drinking and it is all a bit of a French farce. It is going to be a

big success. She is obviously his mistress. Look over there.

secretary. Wave. This is lovely because it is watching British

formality made to look stupid in front of American informality. What

was lovely about Eleanor is she didn't think anybody should be made

to feel inferior for any reason. Do you mind if I call you Elizabeth?

No. No. Everything ensues at the house party for the weekend, lots

of door slamming, things. Is my wife behaving herself? Yes. Has my

mother calmed down? She is fine. Daisy was one of several women with

whom FDR had intimacy. He was subject to ridiculous pressure and

she was one way of releasing it. The only surviving picture of FDR

in a wheelchair was taken by Daisy. He let her see everything of him

that he couldn't show to other people. The King... Inside,

everyone was on their very best behaviour. When ever a member of

the Royal Family goes to America, they are the last word in

informality, you know, they appear to be natural and real people and

they win over the populous. This visit was no exception. I now see

how important this weekend was. To them. To us. To the world. To Hyde

Park On Hudson. We could have sold tickets for this dinner and made

ourselves a pile of money. I will start with a tweet. Bold! It's come

through from Lieutenant Starbuck. "It made The King's Speech light.

It was fun, but historically interesting." Go! Half the film is

about the special relationship between Britain and America. That

half does very much want to be the King's New Speech. The other half

is about the special relationship between Franklin D Roosevelt and

Daisy. It is a relationship that moves quickly from them taking tea

as virtual strangers to parking up in a field. Sitting there while she

delights him manually. That is a scene which hung over the rest of

the movie. It is hard to get it out of your mind. But that is not the

problem. The problem is that for me, a movie or a story should be about

the most pivotal momentous important events in any character's

life. This doesn't feel like it is about the most pivotal hand job in

a car that Roosevelt ever had. It feels so slight and so flimsy that

you would sneeze in the cinema and the whole thing would fall apart.

Slight is a nice way of putting it. Bill Murray has had a kicking. I

don't think he was bad. I love Sam West, Olivia Colman. The cast are

excellent. It feels like you can't grab it. When Sam West was

describing it he said, "This happens, this happens." I wish it

was like a farce! It felt, if I may say so, a little dull? I think - I

don't think "dull" is out of order. Bill Murray is doing what he always

does. He is this wise old scroundrel and I would happily

watch him in anything. -- scoundrel. There are likeable things. When the

British Royals come in, there are funny scenes, Olivia Colman,

playing the Queen Mother. There is one scene with Sam West and Bill

Murray near the end where it all slots into place. It is this one

note perfect scene and it is like going on a bad date and at the very

end they tell you this fantastic joke. I don't know. That is unusual

and surprising but it wasn't enough. By the end, I was surprised at how

dull sex and war could be. There are some shots that are very

beautiful. I thought it looked gorgeous. I said, "I want to go to

upstate New York." You said? It was shot in the Cotswolds! You need

more in life than being pretty. Now it's time for the Top Five.

Hello and welcome, Antonia. I love all of your choices.

This week, your doing Top Five drunk performances on film. This is

a difficult subject. I think more than any Top 5 I have done, this is

about performance. You can write a great drunk, but if your actor

isn't on it, you are in serious trouble. We have all seen that,

haven't we? Yes. It is a very interesting arena for a performer.

You hear of real-life catastrophic drunks putting in perfectly sober

performances then someone like Richard E Grant pulling out one of

the greatest drunks of all time. should say that out loud! I'm very

drunk now! I'm smashed. What is five? Let's start with a beautiful,

highly-decorated English drunk. No harm can come to anybody hanging

around Michael Caine's professor in Educating Rita. Let's have a look.

I've done a fine job on you. It is true. I can see it now. You know,

like you, I am going to change my name. From now on, I'm going to

insist on being called Mary. Mary Shelley. Do you understand that

illusion? What? Mary Shelley wrote a gothic number called Frankenstein.

So brilliant. He is so contained. Yes. The idea, you would be tempted

to overplay drunk? In his wonderful memoir, he talks about how this is

the performance he is most proud of. He considers this to be pure

performance because he thinks he is far away from the performance he is.

You know how he researched the role? No. He said someone said,

"What Tees the research you did to play a drunk?" He said, "I'm a

British actor!" Sorted. I love your number four. Let's go for a really

nasty piece of work. A brilliant actress, Charlize Theron, in Young

Adult. This wasn't a movie I loved but I was knocked out by her

performance. This is a modern performance. Any modern girl has

felt like this on the occasional The way she drinks that Diet Coke!

There is something very frightening about this particular drunk. The

sort of high-rise that she lives in, the way she is separate from

everybody else. There is something so lost about the character. It is

just pitch-perfect. Also, you have been in make-up, you have to play

hungover. "But I was in bed last night." I'm feeling slightly

bemused. What is three? James Dean. I have been wanting to get him into

a Top 5 for three years and here he is in Giant. He was a particularly

interesting actor. He suffered from nerves and in several scenes in his

three movies, he's drunk and in Giant in fact a lot of what you

hear is not James Dean because they were hoping to overdub some of his

bad dialogue because he was drunk while he was filming it. Then he

died the day after the ending of principle photography. It is one of

the bit parts? Yes. In this scene, this is James Dean, the actor, who

just descends - nobody smiles like him. The hair like dreams of a

better world rising from a head. This guy is incredible. Here he is

as... We love you! You are brilliant. This is the lovelorn

redneck who has struck a will. Let's have a look. What do you

That is wonderful. Everybody thought I had a duster?! I'm here

to tell you it ain't, boy. It's here. And there ain't a dang thing

you are going to do about it! think he was dead a few days later!

Oh! I used to have a novelty bin. had Dusty Bin. Two? Drunks can be

so much fun, so this is for every John Belushi fan, this is for all

of us who have forgotten our cars, our keys, our lives, our houses and

can't find anything when we get back, like Charlie Chaplin at 1am

So funny. It is a 34-minute-long film about how he can't find his

bed. How many people could pull that off? I urge anyone to go and

see this. It is on YouTube. showed it to my ten-year-old

tonight and he was creeping with laughter! Can you mablg how much

you would have loved him pulling -- imagine how much you would have

loved him pulling that off? What is number one? This is my favourite

drunk of all time. It is because this particular actor nails this

kind of drunk. We have all met guys like this who can drink themselves

into a moment of super-articulate sobriety. Robert Shaw in Jaws is

never seen without a can of beer or a suspicionly clear liquid in a

china mug. He is perfection. Let's have a look. They didn't even list

it. We formed ourselves into tight groups, you know, kind of like old

squares in a bottle... The shark comes to the nearest man and he

starts pounding and sometimes the shark goes away... Sometimes he

wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks into you, into your

eyes... Robert Shaw wrote that speech, too! He is from the Richard

Burton school of acting where being pickled is what you did! You rolled

through Soho and on and off set. It is as if acting itself was the

grandest form of intoxication and a part of the whole game. Brilliant

choices. We have to go to Twitter. Well, Richard E Grant, James

Stewart in Harvey. I would say Dennis Hopper in Rumble Fish.

Somebody mentioned James Mason in A Star Is Born. Richard Dreyfuss.

Next, Bullet To The Head. Sylvester Stallone plays a New Orleans hitman

who teams up with a Washington DC detective to track down the killer

of his partner. Just don't give me any crap, I'm not in the mood right

now. What is your problem? I wanted to take him out but there were too

many witnesses. He is still out. he wakes up, crack him! He is

totally out, plus he is drunk. What Nice going! Good call(!) I give you

one thing to do. Bullet To The Head is a throwback to a time before

buddy movies became bromances. It is built around bruising fight

scenes and Stallone's one-liners. Every bad guy looks like a roadie

in a Metallica tribute band! Dodgy lawyers go back home and have

masked balls filled with bowl fulls of drugs. I have to say I have

missed that world. I enjoyed Bullet To The Head. In real-life, lawyers

go to farmers' markets. This version is more entertaining.

The world you are talking about is the '80s! I didn't like the '80s. I

was more orange then than I am now! I don't want to go back and live in

a Whitesnake video. It is genuinely the most... The idea that Sylvester

Stallone, who is 86 - he can't walk! If you thought Arnie... And

he beats everyone. The one-liners aren't funny. The acting around him

was painful. I didn't like it. is the point. I think he works

perfectly. If you compare... There aren't the one-liners in between?

He is working so much harder than Arnie in The Last Stand. The double

act, the buddy doesn't work here. The real double act is Walter Hill,

the director. Director of 48 Hours. Listen, this film is full of

cliches. Walter Hill invented those. You are saying he is allowed?

Next, Antiviral, the directorial debut of David Cronenberg's son,

Brandon. A body horror about a company that makes a profit by

infecting fans with viruses taken from their favourite celebrities.

Fame, glamour, perfection. What if you could find it all at the tip of

a needle? Here at the Lucas Clinic we strive to bring you closer to

celebrity than ever before. With samples drawn directly from the

source, you can be connected in ways you never imagined. Do you not

agree the mania surrounding celebrity is reaching an unhealthy

level? I don't. My clients want to feel more connected to those people

that they see in the magazines and on television. Enjoy. So far, I

have had all the diseases. Is there any way you could spread it? It is

pretty shocking. If any other young director had

made a movie which was so heavily influenced by the early body horror

movies, you would be waiting for a lawyer's letter in the post! The

director here is Brandon Cronenberg, the son of David Cronenberg, so

there won't be a lawyer's letter in there. The trick with David

Cronenberg movies was always that for all the grotesque orifices,

there was a lot of satire in the mix. That is partly true with

Antiviral. There are smart ideas here. The celebrity sales stake is

something that will stay with me again. It is unnaturally enlarged

beyond its rightful form. It started as a short a few years ago.

It is one of those ideas where you think it is probably best captured

in 20 minutes. Here, after an hour, you do feel it runs out of ideas.

have been horrible about Sylvester Stallone. Let's move on. Here is a

boy who is brilliant, Caleb Landry Jones, who is compelling. This film

is long but it starts very interestingly and I couldn't take

my eyes off him. Caleb Landry Jones has real presence. He is so young

in this role, he feels like a vampire with a paper round! Yes.

You can't take your eyes off him, even when he is jamming needles

into gums. What is your film of the week? Flight. You? Mine, too.

That's all for tonight. Next week, we're back on Wednesday at the

earlier time of 11.05pm and we'll be reviewing I Give It A Year,

Hitchcock and Warm Bodies. Playing us out tonight is Pain and

Gain. It stars Mark Wahlberg and "The Rock". It's in cinemas in May.

Thank you and good night. I'm a self-made man. I made a lot of

money. You ought to spend some of it on a salad. You know who

invented salad? Poor people. I like it here. When was the last time you

paid your rent? I have a plan to change that. Where did you do your

time? Up north. How you fixed for a job now? You can't kidnap a guy and

take his things. That is so illegal. Sure we can. If we go through with

this, nobody gets hurt, right? we snatch him. We grab him. He