Kent Film Club (Season 2023 Episode 7)
This week Chris Deacy is joined by Paul March-Russell to discuss the films; Casablanca, The Apartment, Brassed Off, and Barbie.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deasy, and each week I'll be joined
00:18 by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact
00:21 certain films have had on their life.
00:24 Each guest will reflect on the films
00:26 which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:29 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia
00:32 where we quiz you at home about a film
00:34 that has a connection to the county.
00:37 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:41 He is a huge science fiction fan and edits Foundation,
00:44 the international review of science fiction.
00:48 He is Paul March-Russell.
00:50 Welcome, Paul.
00:50 Good to have you on the programme.
00:52 And we're gonna start with a classic.
00:55 Why "Casablanca"?
00:56 (laughs)
00:57 "Casablanca", it's such a cliche, isn't it,
00:59 to choose "Casablanca",
01:00 but it is simply utterly wonderful.
01:03 You know, this is comfort food
01:06 for the ears and the eyes, frankly.
01:08 And it takes me back to Saturday mornings,
01:11 Saturday afternoons, BBC Two, black and white movies.
01:13 It means the classic repertoire of Hollywood movies,
01:16 and there was no more classic
01:18 or Hollywood movie than "Casablanca".
01:20 So, you know, this is a film which I've watched
01:22 20, 30 times probably, and I never, ever tire of it.
01:26 And I will quote it endlessly,
01:28 because it is, in a sense, like Dorothy Parker once said
01:30 of "Hamlet", a film made of quotes.
01:32 Yeah, and Paul will always have Paris.
01:36 But-- Indeed.
01:36 But you're right about that.
01:38 Saturday afternoons, BBC Two in the 1990s,
01:42 you see all these great classics.
01:44 Now, I've had the privilege of watching "Casablanca",
01:47 I think, twice on the big screen in the last few years,
01:51 I think most recently within the last few months.
01:53 So, do you want to say a bit about the format
01:56 in which you've watched this?
01:57 Have you only ever watched it on TV,
01:58 or have you seen it at the cinema?
02:00 I've only ever watched it on TV.
02:02 So I think, I suppose, that those associations
02:05 would be very much family-based, domestic,
02:07 and that kind of, you know, close comfort of family,
02:10 I suppose, really.
02:11 And, yeah, and, you know, my family growing up,
02:14 my family now, I've forced my children to watch "Casablanca".
02:17 They've got no escape from it.
02:19 And, yeah, it's just wonderful.
02:22 It's one of those films as well,
02:24 because there is something in it about the way
02:27 that he kind of changes a bit, or he sacrifices himself,
02:30 and the war is going on.
02:32 Do you want to say a little bit about
02:33 what is going on about the mood of the film?
02:34 Because it was made, of course,
02:35 during the Second World War.
02:36 Yeah, so effectively, "Casablanca", the movie,
02:38 it's an enclave for various kinds of refugees
02:42 trying to get away from the advance of the Nazis,
02:44 trying to get to the non-occupied territories,
02:49 shall we say, trying to get to the States, and so on.
02:51 And so they're all trying to buy their way out, effectively.
02:55 And so lots of double dealings going on.
02:57 There's lots of all sorts of weird exchanges.
02:59 And at the heart of it, we have Ingrid Bergman,
03:01 who is married to Paul Heinrich.
03:03 Paul Heinrich is a resistance leader,
03:05 and he's trying to get out, obviously, to escape the Nazis.
03:08 Bogart is Bergman's former lover,
03:10 and he has to make that crucial decision.
03:12 Do I keep the woman, or do I let her go?
03:14 Do I let her go with Paul Heinrich
03:16 so they can escape together?
03:17 And it's a classic one.
03:19 I mean, basically, Bogart's character
03:20 is also like Han Solo in "Star Wars."
03:23 He is the disillusioned romantic.
03:24 He has to make a critical choice.
03:26 He has to announce the woman he loves.
03:28 And it's about, ultimately, about honor.
03:30 And I think that's a key, key word.
03:31 It's about honor and integrity
03:33 and doing the right thing for the right reasons,
03:35 even if it causes you personal loss.
03:38 Plot spoiler, there is, of course,
03:39 a sort of homosocial twist,
03:41 because he's gonna find a new friendship
03:42 with Claude Rains at the very end of the movie,
03:45 the star of "A Beautiful Friendship," and so on.
03:48 But it just captures that mood so perfectly.
03:52 And it's such a fascinating time,
03:54 that sense of the enclave,
03:55 a kind of, you know,
03:57 a sort of kind of almost like gated community.
03:59 And I think there's an interesting sort of sense of,
04:02 yeah, premonition of other kind of enclaves
04:04 around the world and so on.
04:05 - Because there was something about this
04:07 and the way in which, you know,
04:09 he's this jaded figure,
04:10 but he has absolute honor and integrity.
04:13 But he's living in an environment
04:15 whereby you have to be a bit cynical.
04:16 - Absolutely.
04:17 - You have to know how to play the game.
04:19 So we're never quite sure.
04:20 And at the end, of course,
04:21 it could have gone a different way.
04:23 But in a previous episode,
04:25 we were looking at Chinatown.
04:27 And I wonder if there are some similarities here,
04:29 because the ending, of course, is legendary.
04:31 - Yes.
04:32 - But it's not the ending that in a classic
04:34 Hollywood escapism sense you'd expect.
04:36 - Absolutely.
04:37 There's all sorts of stories and legends
04:39 and myths around this movie.
04:40 I mean, the one that we know knows
04:43 was that Bogart was the only actor
04:45 who actually knew what the ending was going to be.
04:47 And that adds to his trickster figure.
04:49 He's basically a trickster in the movie.
04:51 You know, the classic lines, you know,
04:53 you know, "I came here,
04:55 "what did you come here to Casablanca?
04:56 "I came here for the waters.
04:57 "There are no waters.
04:58 "I was misinformed."
04:59 I mean, you know, I can't put this movie endlessly.
05:02 But he is a trickster.
05:03 He's always saying one jump ahead of the game.
05:05 That's actually in real life, that's true.
05:07 You know, Bergman famously said,
05:09 "What's my motivation?
05:10 "Who do I go with?"
05:12 She did not know.
05:13 Only Bogart knew.
05:14 And so that absolutely adds to it,
05:16 that sense of the trickster figure about him.
05:19 And yeah, the ending, it is kind of,
05:25 it's perfect at the time, that sense of,
05:27 you know, absolutely, that bit when Claude Rains
05:29 drops the bottle of wine to be made in Germany
05:31 into the bin, no, I'm not having that.
05:33 You know, and it fits the mood, ultimately.
05:35 And it's about, you know, America deciding
05:38 to do the right thing for the right reason, actually,
05:40 and coming out on the side of Britain
05:42 and the Allies and so on.
05:43 And yet, it's not easy to say,
05:45 an absolutely classic Hollywood ending.
05:47 And of course, famously, they were kind of
05:48 writing the movie as it went along, you know.
05:50 I mean, Umberto Eco wrote a brilliant essay
05:52 about all the kind of narrative strategies in the movie,
05:54 and it's well worth the read.
05:56 But yeah, it was literally, they were making it up.
05:58 They got a general, they know the synopsis,
06:00 they've got the ending, but the actual scenes,
06:01 the lines, the dialogues, it's all on the hoof.
06:04 So much of it, it's just, it's great.
06:06 - They turned it into gold.
06:07 Well, you've certainly made a very persuasive effort.
06:09 Well, it's time to move on to your second chosen film,
06:12 which is also one that I would rate really highly.
06:14 The Apartment.
06:15 - Yeah, The Apartment, now.
06:17 I mean, again, this is, again,
06:19 it's probably back in Saturday Afternoons, BBC Two,
06:22 but also Christmastime, actually.
06:23 This is very much a movie, and it is a Christmas movie,
06:27 although it's an incredibly dark Christmas movie.
06:28 - Well, but it's largely set in that period,
06:30 between Christmas and New Year.
06:31 - It is, absolutely.
06:32 And it was actually, it was only during lockdown,
06:36 and I saw it last time it was during lockdown,
06:38 and I realised just how much this movie
06:41 had had an impact upon me.
06:42 And again, the set up, for those who don't know the movie,
06:46 won the Oscar, actually, in 1960 for best movie.
06:49 But basically, Jack Lemmon plays the little guy,
06:53 the office schnook.
06:53 Basically, he is trying to get promotion in the corporation,
06:58 and so he effectively, he lets out his apartment
07:01 to his bosses, so they can meet up with their mistresses
07:05 and have their dalliances.
07:07 And ultimately, he's hoping to get the award,
07:10 is to be promoted.
07:11 He falls in love with Sheila Maclean,
07:13 the elevator girl, and Maclean, by the way,
07:14 is absolutely gorgeous in this movie,
07:16 who turns out to be one of the mistresses,
07:20 one of his senior bosses.
07:23 So again, we have that dilemma.
07:24 You know, it's about, what do I do?
07:26 The right thing for the right reason.
07:28 I think Beauregard's about honour.
07:30 This movie's about integrity, for me.
07:31 And it's about somebody taking a stand, ultimately,
07:34 even though it will cost them the very thing
07:36 they've actually set their life goal upon, as it were.
07:39 And when I look back at this movie from 2020, 2021,
07:44 or whenever I saw it last, I suddenly realised,
07:46 gosh, actually, this movie really did influence me enormously.
07:50 That sense of wanting to be a good person.
07:53 And it's a really, really deep movie.
07:55 - Yeah, and also, this is a film that,
07:57 when American Beauty won the Best Picture Oscar in 2000,
08:02 was cited at the Academy Awards.
08:04 And following this through, the whole office party syndrome,
08:08 he wants to advance,
08:11 but he knows that ultimately there's a price.
08:13 And having that executive bathroom
08:15 actually isn't something that's worth having
08:17 if along the way you're going to be dealing with the tragedy.
08:20 And you mentioned the classic lines,
08:22 and of course, the one that stands out for me
08:23 is Shirley MacLaine saying,
08:25 "If you fall in love with a married man,
08:27 you shouldn't wear mascara."
08:29 - Yes, yeah, exactly.
08:30 - But the link with Casablanca is quite a striking one,
08:34 really, about somebody who has to do things
08:37 that are questionable,
08:38 but ultimately he takes a stand.
08:40 - Yeah, yeah.
08:41 - Even if it comes at a great personal price.
08:43 - Absolutely, and it's a really interesting movie,
08:48 'cause they won the Oscar, 60.
08:50 If you see the trailer, they really emphasise
08:52 all the comical aspects.
08:54 This is a really dark movie, folks.
08:56 Again, I forced my children to watch this.
08:58 And they went, "It's got somebody trying to commit suicide."
09:01 (laughing)
09:03 It's like, "What kind of Christmas movie is this, Dad?"
09:05 It's a very, very dark movie,
09:07 and it's really edgy.
09:08 Actually, the other reference, mate,
09:10 you make, like, "American Beauty,"
09:11 it's also to a series like "Mad Men," I think.
09:14 That whole kind of corporate culture,
09:16 this movie comes around,
09:17 it's released around the same time
09:18 as people like Vance Packard, William White
09:21 publish these great sort of anti-corporate America books,
09:23 these wonderful kind of critical studies
09:25 about advertising and so on.
09:27 And it really captures that mood again,
09:29 that sense of, you know, is this, you know,
09:32 we fought the war, is this really the America
09:35 that we actually fought for?
09:36 Is this the culture, the society
09:38 that we actually wanted?
09:40 And it's almost about trying to, again,
09:42 recapture that sense of integrity,
09:44 honor, friendship again, you know?
09:48 - And it's the American dream,
09:49 but it's the American dream in the context here
09:52 where, I suppose, similarly to "Casablanca,"
09:55 all the other workmates there, you know,
09:56 there's a lack of,
09:58 there's an unscrupulousness,
10:01 shall we say, to what they're doing.
10:03 And for them, advancement is all that matters,
10:05 and it's okay for people along the way
10:08 to lose their way,
10:10 provided that you look out for yourself.
10:12 - Yeah, this is a poisoned American dream, really.
10:15 And it may well take an emigre like Billy Wilder
10:18 to actually see this, actually, and expose it.
10:21 And I just think it's a great black comedy,
10:24 it's a great satire.
10:25 It is really funny, folks, as well, by the way.
10:28 It's just lovely.
10:29 - I think you've hit the nail on the head there,
10:31 and it's the same when "Midnight Cowboy" won the Oscar
10:34 at the end of that decade with John Schlesinger,
10:37 an outsider, somebody from Europe,
10:39 who was able, perhaps, to see America
10:42 through a different, a more caustic lens.
10:46 And the apartment says something, as well,
10:49 in an age of "Me Too," as well,
10:50 that this really resonates
10:52 about the way that you treat people.
10:54 And at the end of it, of course,
10:55 there's the whole thing about being a schmuck,
10:57 and it's about the right way to be.
10:59 - Being a mensch, being a mensch.
11:00 That's the key line that the Jewish doctor
11:03 that says to Leman, "Be a mensch."
11:05 And, you know, be a man.
11:06 But also, what does that mean?
11:07 It means about being honourable, being decent,
11:09 looking out for other people, being compassionate.
11:12 It's not acting like these sort of egotistical senior bosses
11:16 who just want one thing.
11:17 - Yeah, that is a really, really fantastic choice.
11:21 But that's about all the time we have
11:23 for this first half of the show.
11:25 However, before we go to the break,
11:27 we have a Kent Film trivia question for you at home.
11:32 What film was inspired by the 1950 Miss Kent Beauty pageant
11:37 where the director, Frank Launder, was one of the judges?
11:41 Was it A, "Captain Boycott," B, "Lady Godiva Rides Again,"
11:46 or C, "Folly to be Wise?"
11:49 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53 Don't go away.
11:54 (dramatic music)
11:57 Hello, and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:08 Now, just before that ad break,
12:10 we asked you at home a Kent Film trivia question.
12:14 What film was inspired by the 1950 Miss Kent Beauty pageant
12:18 where the director, Frank Launder, was one of the judges?
12:21 I asked, was it A, "Captain Boycott,"
12:25 B, "Lady Godiva Rides Again," or C, "Folly to be Wise?"
12:30 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact B,
12:35 "Lady Godiva Rides Again."
12:37 The film sees Marjorie Clark pulled into a dangerous
12:40 and foreign world after winning a local beauty pageant.
12:44 Did you get the answer right?
12:46 Well, it is time now to move on
12:47 to your next chosen film, Paul,
12:49 and it's "Brassed Off," isn't it?
12:51 Yes, it is, absolutely.
12:53 So this is a movie that has the misfortune
12:56 of coming out about the same time as "The Full Monty."
12:59 Now, I like "The Full Monty,"
13:01 but "Brassed Off" is the better film, actually.
13:05 So if you do like "The Full Monty,"
13:06 do watch "Brassed Off."
13:07 It is absolutely fantastic.
13:10 So what we have here, we have,
13:12 it's actually sort of inspired by a true story,
13:14 the real-life Scunthorpe Colliery Band,
13:16 and you have a Colliery Band who are competing
13:20 to join the finals in London
13:23 of the Colliery Band contest,
13:26 but it's all set against the backdrop
13:27 of the aftermath of the miners' strikes of the mid-1980s.
13:32 Now, this film resonates with me,
13:33 and I'm gonna try to avoid being on political soapboxes,
13:35 but nonetheless, here we go, folks.
13:37 So I grew up in Gillingham,
13:39 and in 1984, the Chatham Dockyard closed
13:42 at the same time as the miners' strike,
13:45 and the middle of towns was in face of mass unemployment.
13:49 So that was very much the backdrop of my adolescence.
13:51 So watching this film,
13:53 watching these characters deal with the aftermath
13:55 of those strikes absolutely resonates with me.
13:58 Now, at the heart of it,
13:59 even though we've got Pete Posse,
14:00 obviously, Tarv Fitzgerald,
14:01 you and McGregor looking really gorgeous there,
14:04 but nonetheless, at the heart of this movie,
14:06 there is a fantastic speech by Stephen Tomkinson,
14:09 who's in a sense, he's got the Yossi Hughes of this movie,
14:13 and Tomkinson delivers what was,
14:15 some people called a rant at the time
14:16 against Margaret Thatcher,
14:18 and actually, for me, it was like, thank goodness,
14:20 somebody's actually finally said this,
14:22 not in some kind of arthouse movie,
14:24 but in an actual mass entertainment movie,
14:27 saying, "These are the people to blame.
14:29 This is what has happened, and I'm naming them."
14:31 And that sense of somebody being called out,
14:34 it wasn't a rant for me.
14:35 This was absolute articulation of working-class anger
14:39 at what had happened.
14:41 And in the movie, we see that basically,
14:42 everybody lets the working-class characters down,
14:45 the politicians, the management, and even the unions.
14:48 They are all actually in it together,
14:50 and they all knife the working-class characters.
14:53 They gain some measure of honour again
14:57 through their competition in London and through their music.
15:02 It's just, I just think it's an absolutely fantastic film.
15:04 - And one thing I remember,
15:05 the night before the 1997 general election,
15:08 Channel 4 screened this,
15:09 and there was some controversy around it.
15:11 - Yes, that's right.
15:11 - I saw it at the cinema.
15:12 I think it was the previous November,
15:14 so it was towards the end of 1996.
15:16 But it really hit a nerve,
15:17 because although, as you say, it was set in '84, '85,
15:20 at the time of the general election,
15:22 it really felt that there was a lot
15:25 that needed to be unpacked,
15:28 and a lot of anger, which,
15:30 although it's set in the north of England,
15:31 of course, the resonances here go much wider.
15:36 Is this a film that you saw when it came out?
15:38 - I saw it when, actually, it was first shown on TV,
15:40 actually, again, so these are all TV movies,
15:43 so far, and, yeah, again,
15:46 it's a classic Channel 4 movie.
15:48 Again, we talk about watching BBC Two movies
15:50 Saturday afternoons, or,
15:51 because you remember, Channel 4 was such a fantastic
15:54 supporter of British cinema in the 1980s, 1990s,
15:57 and this is one of their films,
15:58 directed by Mark Herman,
15:59 written by Mark Herman, as well, certainly.
16:01 And it's just great.
16:03 It was, you're right,
16:04 it was that kind of pent-up release of emotion.
16:08 And it, yeah, I mean, which, again, I suppose,
16:10 you know, you can see in terms of the Labour victory,
16:12 and so on.
16:13 Although, less so, that better, maybe.
16:15 But nonetheless, it's,
16:18 actually, the thing about this movie,
16:21 it's a deeply, deeply political film.
16:23 And yet, we're always told, in the 1990s,
16:26 was somehow, politics, we don't talk about politics,
16:28 we don't talk about ideology,
16:30 it's an ideology-free zone.
16:33 This is absolutely ideological,
16:35 it's absolutely searingly political.
16:38 And also, by the way, folks, it is incredibly funny.
16:40 It's a deeply, deeply funny film,
16:43 and it's just wonderful.
16:45 Fantastic British cast.
16:47 You've got the wonderful youngsters there,
16:49 Fitzgerald and McGregor, as I learned,
16:50 but Pete Postlethwaite, Philip Jackson, Sue Johnston,
16:54 it is an absolutely wonderful cast,
16:55 and they deliver the lines with such bite.
16:58 Oh, it's great, absolutely great.
17:00 - And you just reminded me, as well,
17:02 that Mark Herman was the director of Little Boys,
17:04 which came out a few years later,
17:05 which is a film I'd rate very highly.
17:07 Which, again, set in a very British,
17:09 working-class milieu in Scarborough, in that context,
17:13 but also playing with issues around escapism and musicals.
17:16 So there's a clear thread with Brastoff.
17:20 When was the last time that you saw Brastoff?
17:22 - Quite a while back now, actually,
17:23 but it doesn't diminish, it doesn't fade.
17:28 Once you've watched it, it stays with you.
17:31 It's an absolute classic.
17:32 - Yeah, and I saw it on the big screen in Kent
17:34 only a couple of years ago,
17:36 and it really, really has stood the test of time.
17:38 - It's one of the best British movies.
17:39 - Well, it's now time to move on to your final chosen film.
17:43 Not the first time this has come up in this programme.
17:46 It's Barbie.
17:48 - Absolutely.
17:49 It is the movie of the moment,
17:51 and this is definitely for my daughter.
17:54 And this, I actually have seen the movie in the cinema
17:57 only two weeks ago.
17:58 I can't really be nostalgic for a film
17:59 I saw only two weeks ago,
18:01 but nonetheless, it is absolutely fantastic.
18:03 And it does, oddly enough, put all the other films
18:05 we've been talking about into context.
18:07 We've been talking about honour and integrity and community,
18:10 and this is a film which is absolutely brilliant.
18:13 It is so gloriously cinematic and so wickedly witty.
18:17 When Barbie says, "I'm having a Proustian moment,"
18:20 it's just wonderful stuff.
18:22 It's very, very intelligent.
18:23 You know, we've had people on social media,
18:26 people on the right saying, "Oh, this is an anti-men movie."
18:29 It's not.
18:30 It's anti-patriarchy, different thing altogether.
18:33 Or people on the left saying, "Oh, Greta Gerwig has sold out."
18:35 No, she hasn't.
18:37 Mattel obviously must have thought
18:39 they were gonna get the Lego movie or something like that.
18:42 Well, it's the Lego movie, "Meets the Purple Rose of Cairo,"
18:45 a great movie by Woody Allen.
18:47 And it is such a brilliant critique about men and women
18:52 as they operate under patriarchy,
18:55 or indeed in Bible land, a matriarchy.
18:58 It's so clever.
18:59 And ultimately, it's a movie about kindness and generosity
19:03 and understanding and friendship,
19:06 and about people doing the right thing
19:08 for the right reasons and finding themselves,
19:10 whether individually or as part of a community.
19:13 And I just think it's absolutely,
19:15 gloriously clever, wonderful film.
19:17 - And do you think that different people
19:19 will get something different out of it,
19:21 maybe even on each viewing?
19:22 So you saw it a couple of weeks ago.
19:23 Did you watch it?
19:25 You mentioned your daughter.
19:25 Did you watch it with your daughter?
19:26 - I watched it with my daughter and my son.
19:28 - And did you have a conversation with them afterwards?
19:30 - Did a little bit, yeah.
19:31 I mean, my daughter's basically gonna give me a lecture
19:34 about it, really, but that's my daughter.
19:37 I just think, I mean, I think Marie, my daughter,
19:40 I think she loves it because it's so wonderfully sort of,
19:43 as I would call it, intertextual.
19:45 It draws in the whole Barbie universe,
19:47 and it draws in all the Barbie history and so on.
19:49 All the characters have been lost and abandoned
19:51 over the years and discarded,
19:53 and it brings them all together and so on.
19:55 And she's absolutely got the,
19:57 completely got the kind of feminist message
19:59 of the movie too, as well.
20:01 I'm just struck by just how, how clever this film is,
20:06 the way they've taken the most highly commercial
20:10 or seemingly commercial product and smuggled.
20:13 I mean, Martin Scorsese talks beside of the director
20:15 as smuggler, and Greta Gerwig's done that.
20:17 She's smuggled in, and yet it's almost like under your nose,
20:20 but in your face at the same time as well.
20:22 That's anatomically weird, but there we go.
20:24 You know, as if, as if, it's just the most wonderfully
20:26 amazing film.
20:27 - The company that made Barbie also, of course,
20:30 appear in the film, or at least there's references to them.
20:32 - Absolutely.
20:33 - So it's one of those scenarios of putting everything
20:37 there front and center in order to deconstruct it.
20:40 So it's not trying to find a way around it.
20:42 It's actually putting it up in front and then saying,
20:44 let's deconstruct, we'll do it under the guise of maybe,
20:49 I was about to say escapism, but I kind of feel
20:52 that that doesn't really do justice to what we watch.
20:54 - No, that's the thing, the thing, I mean, I think,
20:56 again, if you compare this to something like the Lego movie,
20:59 the Lego movie has a kind of allegorical figure,
21:01 Lord Business, I mean, that could be anybody there.
21:04 This is explicitly the Maytel corporation.
21:06 Interesting, because Will Ferrell, of course,
21:07 plays both the head of Maytel and, of course,
21:10 he gave the voice of Lord Business in the Lego movie.
21:13 And yet it's explicitly about, you know,
21:16 the fact that Maytel, you know, they underestimate
21:19 their consumers, they don't employ any women, you know.
21:22 (laughs)
21:24 I don't think they're gonna bring down capitalism
21:27 or anything, but I think it's as satirical a movie
21:31 as it could possibly be, bearing in mind all the sponsorship,
21:34 all the merchandising, you know, all the kind of,
21:37 you know, Maytel guarantee going with it.
21:39 And I just think, I think they've got more
21:42 than they expected, really, and I think it's an absolute
21:45 movie to be taken up by so many different people, actually,
21:48 and it's not just about selling dolls.
21:50 - Because when it came out, of course,
21:52 on the same day as Oppenheimer, but do you think,
21:55 and I know that Blade Runner and E.T. were released
21:58 at the same time in 1982, but do you think that,
22:02 in the same way, Barbie will still be talked about
22:06 in decades to come?
22:08 Will people always see that seminal weekend
22:11 as the one that kind of, particularly post-lockdown,
22:14 has given the chance, you know, for people to return
22:18 to the cinema and to get something really meaty out of it?
22:22 - Yeah, maybe so.
22:22 I was certainly hoping so.
22:24 I hope Barbie will feature very strongly
22:27 at the next Oscars.
22:28 I mean, I just think, there's some great performers.
22:32 Actually, you just mentioned Blade Runner,
22:32 of course, Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049.
22:35 Ryan Gosling, I think, is absolutely fantastic, actually.
22:37 I must admit, I think he does a really good performance.
22:38 Margot Robbie, I think, is absolutely wonderful.
22:40 In fact, the whole cast is fantastic, actually.
22:44 Some great ensemble playing.
22:45 And I do hope that this movie, I mean, you know,
22:49 I think it so perfectly articulates, captures
22:54 that sense of kind of fourth-wave feminism,
22:57 thinking more intersectionally, and yet does it,
23:00 again, it's so gloriously cinematic.
23:02 You know, the opening parody of 2001 is so wonderful.
23:06 And it's so wonderfully witty and so funny.
23:10 And it doesn't actually preach.
23:13 People say, "Oh, does it preach?"
23:14 And no, it doesn't preach.
23:15 It's so accessible.
23:16 It's so, again, it just absolutely takes you in.
23:19 It's just into its embrace.
23:21 And it's a lovely film.
23:23 And I do hope it stands the test of time, actually.
23:25 I think it deserves to.
23:27 - Yeah, absolutely.
23:28 Thank you, Paul.
23:29 Well, I'm afraid that that is all the time we have for today.
23:32 Many thanks to Paul March-Russell for joining us
23:35 and being such a brilliant guest.
23:37 And many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:40 Be sure to come back and join us again
23:43 at the same time next week.
23:44 Until then, that's all from us.
23:46 Goodbye.
23:47 - Thank you.
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