This week Chris Deacy is joined by Heidi Colthup to discuss the films; Terminator 2, Galaxy Quest, Arrival, and In The Cut.
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00:00 [Music]
00:12 Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deesey and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the
00:19 impact certain films have had on their life.
00:22 Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:32 has a connection to the county.
00:34 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38 She has worked as a freelance journalist including as the first female columnist for Farmers
00:43 Weekly and has a lifelong love of video games.
00:46 She is Heidi Colthup.
00:49 Great to have you on the show Heidi.
00:50 Thank you for having me Chris.
00:51 And now let's find out about your first chosen film which is Terminator 2 Judgment Day.
00:57 Why have you chosen this film?
01:00 It's a great film.
01:03 It's fun and I really like the fact that the film is very much about relationships.
01:13 And yes of course there's the Terminator and he in the first film of course it's Arnold
01:18 Schwarzenegger who is coming to get this boy John Connor and well the mother actually in
01:24 the first one, Sarah Connor.
01:26 And you know keeps coming and keeps coming.
01:28 But then in the second one he returns and he's actually been sent by the boy, the child
01:34 that Sarah has.
01:36 He's been sent by John's adult future version, sent back in time to protect him.
01:42 And there's very much a father-son relationship going on in there as well as sort of a best
01:48 friend and you know the whole thing that we had for a while you know Hasta La Vista baby
01:54 and stuff like that.
01:55 But it's so much fun and yeah there's a very strong female lead and you know Sarah
02:04 Connor just she's clearly has got PTSD and is affected but she looks amazing and it's
02:14 a very strong depiction of a woman.
02:17 Yeah and I think James Cameron of course who also did the second Alien film, Aliens, very
02:23 similar dynamic of course.
02:24 I know Sigourney Weaver got an Oscar nomination for that film and here with Linda Connor as
02:28 well, Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton.
02:30 What a fascinating dynamic because you've got the whole man versus machine but a very
02:34 strong female element to this genre.
02:37 Quite pioneering when it came out I'd say.
02:40 I think so.
02:41 And I think for me as I mean this came out in…
02:46 91.
02:47 Thank you, 91.
02:49 So being sort of quite young when it came out and it was a sort of a definitive movie
02:57 I think for realising that women can be strong and women can be involved with science and
03:06 I feel like I'm now crusading here.
03:08 Yeah but actually that's an important point because when this came out, I mean I think
03:12 I saw this film before the original Terminator movie and I certainly saw it on television.
03:16 I have seen it on the big screen and in 3D but there's so much in this because I grew
03:21 up in an age when it was Rambo versus Rocky and there was that whole sense of Schwarzenegger
03:26 was this larger than life character.
03:28 But the film is far more subtle than that and there's so much about the future, so
03:31 much about sci-fi, time travel and because I work in the area of theology as well.
03:38 This feels in so many ways like the crystallisation of all those elements.
03:41 Absolutely, I think you're right.
03:43 And I think that there's an awful lot going on in it but equally it's just a really
03:52 fun entertaining movie that you can watch and yes there are lots of things in there
03:58 that you can think quite deeply about but equally you can just enjoy the chase.
04:03 And can you remember the first time you saw this?
04:06 Was it on the big screen?
04:07 Have you ever seen it on the big screen?
04:09 I don't think I have.
04:10 I think I probably saw it on…
04:12 We hired it from a video shop.
04:16 As we did in those days or watch it on television by staying up until a certain time in the
04:21 evening when our favourite films were on.
04:23 But is there anything, you mentioned the famous line, the 'hasta la vista baby' but in
04:27 terms of the journey of this because we deal with AI and in education there are all these
04:33 questions about chat GPT and so on.
04:36 But do you find in this film that it's quite pioneering because it's playing on that
04:40 notion that we're dealing with now in terms of artificial intelligence that maybe it's
04:44 the machines that are doing the creative work and Karl Marx spoke about humans and being
04:52 alienated once upon a time and here now we have the machines doing our jobs.
04:57 Exactly.
04:58 The machines as we see through the rest of the whole of this franchise of movies, the
05:04 machines are the ones that have taken over and I think that that's… and completely
05:09 cut out human beings and I think that is one of the reasons why Terminator 2 continues
05:16 to be in amongst certainly the top 100 if not the top 50 or top 20 of films of all time
05:22 because I think it plays into very much contemporary fears around the machines and the computers,
05:28 artificial intelligence, robots are all going to take over from us and we're not going
05:34 to have anything to do.
05:35 Some of those fears are perhaps founded in some facts.
05:39 I think at this moment in time an awful lot of those fears are a bit overblown.
05:45 Do you think that the remaining films, because obviously this was the second, did the subsequent
05:51 Terminator films that James Cameron of course maybe had a producer role but didn't direct,
05:56 do you feel that they live up to the standards of the first two?
06:00 I did go to see the third one which had the female Terminator in it.
06:05 I saw that in the cinema and I remember very little of it and I can't even remember if
06:12 that's the one that has Claire Danes in it.
06:14 Yeah, that was the third one, 2003 or thereabouts.
06:17 And I thought, you know, some of the plot is quite interesting but you need a really
06:25 good villain and it was really interesting in Terminator 2 to have that villain from
06:32 the first one suddenly become the sort of hero or at least the magical helper if you
06:39 like.
06:40 So that was really good and the actor whose name currently escapes me who plays the new
06:46 Terminator who's all sort of, you know, liquid metal and can turn himself into anything,
06:51 that I think was even more terrifying than Schwarzenegger as this robot who squeaked.
06:57 It was a bit like C-3PO, you know, sort of moving along and very much being a robot whereas
07:03 the Terminator in 2 is this liquid…
07:06 Robert Patrick.
07:07 That's it, thank you, yeah.
07:09 But just, you know, he can change into anything, this shapeshifter.
07:12 There's a lot going on in there.
07:13 Yeah.
07:14 Okay, well we're going to move on to your second chosen film, Heidi.
07:16 So you've gone for Galaxy Quest which I did see at the cinema back in 2000.
07:22 Oh wow, no I didn't.
07:24 This was another one I think, I don't think I saw this film until fairly recently and
07:32 it was one that I had just sort of dismissed.
07:35 I think I saw it after Toy Story and after the whole sort of Toy Story franchise.
07:41 So it wasn't until then, and mind you that came out in the late 90s, but I think, yeah,
07:46 certainly I didn't see this until probably about 10, 15 years ago.
07:50 The second Toy Story film also came out in 2000 so they would have been out around the
07:54 same kind of period.
07:56 Yeah, which of course is why Tim the Spaceman in Toy Story.
08:01 Oh, Tim Allen.
08:02 That's it, sorry, Tim Allen, yes.
08:04 So Tim Allen of course playing the Captain in Galaxy Quest had that whole thing of, oh
08:10 we've already seen him in Toy Story, you know, as, again, the name has gone completely
08:15 from my head.
08:16 I'll blame my age.
08:19 But you're onto something really key here because they're all playing, aren't they,
08:24 in this sort of against this whole, you know, they're actors playing a role but actually
08:29 whether they care for the creation as much as the fans do and then what happens when
08:35 they meet the fans.
08:36 There's so much going on in this ostensible comedy.
08:39 And in fact I was reading about this yesterday, it just randomly sort of popped up on social
08:44 media, a post about Star Trek and how, the name has gone again, the actor that plays
08:56 Picard, how, very famous British actor, how he didn't go and see this film, didn't want
09:04 to see it because he thought it's just, you know, it's poking fun, particularly at Star
09:09 Trek but all of those different clichés that we have in space travel and that whole notion
09:18 of essentially a space opera.
09:20 And then he went to see it and realised that actually this is pretty much part of the Star
09:25 Trek canon.
09:26 You know, it's an absolute love letter to Star Trek in the same way that the TV show
09:32 The Orville is to some extent.
09:35 And I think that is one of the most profound things about Galaxy Quest because of course
09:39 it's a comedy and it doesn't pretend to be anything other than that.
09:43 But we often associate Sigourney Weaver, who of course, I mentioned her of course in the
09:47 context of the previous film with Aliens, now she is somebody who's iconic and yet as
09:54 an actress who obviously gets paid for doing a role, the way that the fans have an investment
09:58 and the way that she sees the role, I think that it's very multi-layered.
10:02 But what is it that stands out particularly for you in Galaxy Quest?
10:07 I think it is that fan service.
10:10 And I mean, I very much like the fact that there are lots and lots of in-jokes.
10:15 So Sigourney Weaver has a scene where she actually says, as an actress, I have no idea
10:23 what I'm doing, why I'm supposed to be doing this.
10:26 I've got a low-cut uniform and big hair and I know that I'm going to win though.
10:34 And so there's all of those, again, all those tropes that we've had, even right back from
10:39 films like Barbarella of this idea of here's this extremely sexy looking woman who is supposed
10:46 to be some amazing star traveler.
10:51 And in fact, Sigourney Weaver, of course, the big joke is Sigourney Weaver had just
10:56 played or was known for playing in the whole Alien franchise.
11:01 This woman who didn't play into all of those, oh, look at me with the long hair and all
11:07 the rest of it.
11:08 Instead, somebody who was there to get on with the job and would do it and nobody listened
11:13 to her.
11:14 You know, famously, Alien and all of the Aliens movies, it's about a woman who is not listened
11:20 to.
11:21 She manages to save the day along with her cat.
11:24 That's the dream.
11:25 Well, I look forward to revisiting Galaxy Quest in the light of our conversation.
11:29 Well, that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show.
11:32 However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:38 Which film was able to utilize the privately owned Saltwood Castle for filming?
11:44 Was it A, the Harry Hill movie, B, My Week with Marilyn, or was it C, the tunnel sabotage?
11:50 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53 Don't go away.
12:06 Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:08 Now, just before that ad break, we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:13 Which film was able to utilize the privately owned Saltwood Castle for filming?
12:18 I asked, was it A, the Harry Hill movie, B, My Week with Marilyn, or was it C, the tunnel
12:24 sabotage?
12:25 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact B, My Week with Marilyn.
12:32 Saltwood Castle, still privately owned by members of the Clark family.
12:36 The castle was also used for a BBC drama series.
12:40 Did you get the answer right?
12:41 Well, it's time now to move on to your next chosen film, Heidi.
12:46 And you've chosen Arrival, haven't you?
12:48 I have.
12:49 I have.
12:50 So another sci-fi film.
12:54 I didn't realize until I started thinking about favorite films for this how much science
13:02 fiction I watch.
13:03 And I do watch and enjoy, obviously, a lot of sci-fi.
13:09 But this one is a slightly different type of sci-fi.
13:15 So I used to be a lecturer in linguistics.
13:19 And this is a linguistics film, which is very rare.
13:23 Or at least it's very rare to have it done well.
13:25 And it is done well in this.
13:27 So essentially, the basic story of this is that these aliens arrive.
13:33 And rather than the whole sort of thing that we're used to seeing in American movies of,
13:40 you know, oh, they've arrived.
13:41 You know, we go like the 4th of July and so on, and Independence Day, that was it.
13:47 Rather than the aliens are coming to kill us or anything like that, these aliens have
13:51 actually come to help us.
13:53 But they don't understandably communicate in the same way that we do.
13:59 And they're not even recognizably-- they're not aliens that you would look at and say,
14:04 oh, that's an alien.
14:05 These are strange creatures that you don't actually really get to see.
14:10 Everything is behind a sort of a darkened wall inside this strange craft, which is that
14:15 sort of slice thing.
14:17 And Amy Adams is called in because she is a linguist.
14:20 It is, I think, I can safely say for all of my colleagues I've had over the years are
14:25 linguists.
14:26 This is very much absolutely the dream of every linguist, to be called upon to go and
14:31 do something incredibly important like this and communicate with aliens who have a completely
14:35 different language structure.
14:38 And that's the key point of the film, because these aliens don't experience time in a linear
14:45 way as human beings do and everybody on the planet does, all creatures on the planet do.
14:53 So we obviously live one day after another.
14:55 The aliens don't.
14:56 They are able to perceive all of time at once.
15:01 So the film is actually structured in a completely nonlinear way.
15:07 So the beginning you have flashbacks, but you don't realise until the end of the story
15:12 that actually they weren't flashbacks, they were flash forwards.
15:15 So Amy Adams is the main character essentially, and her sort of love interest is played by
15:22 Jeremy Renner.
15:23 Their relationship is very odd and it doesn't become clear why that is until the end of
15:29 the film.
15:31 And as Amy Adams begins to understand this alien language and begins to work out a way
15:38 to communicate with them, so she begins to see the world in the way that they do.
15:44 So she no longer sees it entirely linear either.
15:48 So it's a really interesting premise.
15:50 And it makes me think as well of Contact with the Jodie Foster film, which explored similar
15:54 sort of questions about the way that we perceive...
15:56 Based on an amazing book, yeah.
15:57 ... and then we perceive what an extraterrestrial life would be like, but it wrong-foots us
16:03 in so many ways.
16:04 Completely.
16:05 But in terms of what you were saying there, I mean some people might say, "Well, I saw
16:08 this film and then I wanted to be a linguist."
16:09 In your case, you were already a linguist.
16:12 And when you then saw this film, did it kind of make you think, "That's it, that's somehow
16:16 some sort of almost like vindication for what you do," because it's sort of like putting
16:20 what you do out there in this prime place.
16:23 I wish I could say that, but I mean, although, yeah, I was lecturing in linguistics, now
16:29 a lecturer in media, I fell into linguistics.
16:33 And I went into it, I went into the department because of my media experience.
16:37 And at the time, they needed somebody who could teach how to write for the media, because
16:42 I had been a journalist.
16:43 It was very much a case of, "Well, yes, I can do this, I've done this."
16:47 And I have picked up most of my linguistic knowledge along the way.
16:53 And it's something that's always fascinated me.
16:55 When I was at school, my school didn't offer English language as an A-level, so I couldn't
17:00 do it.
17:01 And I wanted to do that.
17:02 So I think there was always a baby linguist in there.
17:06 But yeah, it wasn't until I actually got into the job and then started hearing my colleagues
17:10 talking about their research, and particularly those people looking at global languages and
17:19 the things that unite them and so on.
17:22 So this film was absolutely, "Oh, I know a bit about this."
17:26 And I have colleagues who know a lot about this sort of stuff.
17:29 So it was interesting because it absolutely played into my constant feed and need for
17:36 new knowledge.
17:37 And yeah, so I really enjoyed the fact that this was quite intellectual, but at the same
17:41 time it's a good romp and it's a good film.
17:45 Well, we've had three sci-fi films so far.
17:47 So we're going to move on to your final chosen film.
17:50 And you've chosen In The Cut, which is a different genre, Jane Campion and of course, a very
17:56 famous Meg Ryan association.
17:57 But perhaps from out of the film.
17:59 But perhaps you want to say, first of all, why you chose In The Cut.
18:02 I have a huge, huge love of thrillers and I read and I tend to read a huge number of
18:13 crime thrillers and pretty much UK based ones.
18:16 I like the noir, but you know, contemporary ones.
18:19 And so this absolutely plays into all of those.
18:22 It is a crime thriller.
18:24 It's a noir.
18:25 So Mark Ruffalo, it was one of his, literally one of his first really sort of breakthrough
18:30 movies.
18:31 It was long before all of the superhero stuff.
18:35 And he plays a very interesting character who is essentially this hard bitten New York
18:42 detective trying to solve this series of crimes.
18:46 One of them has, there's been a murder of a young woman, as it always is in so many
18:51 of these sort of cliched stories.
18:53 Although this is completely not a cliched story, although there are elements of it.
18:58 So it happens in the building that Meg Ryan lives in.
19:01 Meg Ryan is an English teacher.
19:04 So I'm back again to, I think that was another reason why I watched this and it's like, oh,
19:09 OK, it's a thriller and it's a crime thriller.
19:11 Oh, Meg Ryan's playing somebody who is lecturing and she was lecturing on To The Lighthouse.
19:17 And at the time I was teaching English Lit and because I lectured in that as well, I
19:23 was actually trying to get over my dislike at the time of Wolves To The Lighthouse.
19:28 So I watched this and I just remember her teaching a class and one of the students saying,
19:35 oh, it's just about an old lady who dies.
19:38 And that's true.
19:40 That's what To The Lighthouse is about.
19:41 But that's also what this is about.
19:43 But also in the cut is fundamentally a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
19:51 And that for me, because I also have a massive love of fairy tales, that was a really important
19:58 point.
19:59 And it's a very grown up film.
20:01 And famously, there is also a quite explicit sex scene between Ruffalo and Meg Ryan, which
20:07 actually led to the film.
20:08 When it went on general release as a DVD, it had to be sold in the States under an R
20:14 certificate, whereas in the UK, you know, it was Jane Campion.
20:17 I think the UK, because Campion is a New Zealander, has very much the same sort of, the same opinion
20:26 and the same views of film as a lot of contemporary European filmmakers have.
20:34 And so in the UK, when this was shown, there was no problem with it.
20:38 Nothing was cut.
20:40 But in the cut, had some cuts in America.
20:43 Now, I saw this at the cinema in 2004, I think it would have been.
20:50 And you're right that it came with a lot of baggage.
20:54 And I agree, from what I remember from that one occasion that I watched it, it didn't
20:58 quite live up to some of the reputation, shall we say, that preceded it.
21:04 But of course, there was the famous Meg Ryan interview when she was promoting this film,
21:08 which I think people are probably more familiar with that than maybe the film itself.
21:12 Absolutely, yes.
21:13 Yes, because Michael Parkinson was asking her a lot of questions about her and her past
21:21 because she had actually gone to university.
21:25 I think she went to Columbia in New York and had started as a journalism major and dropped
21:32 out of that to go into modelling and then to become an actress.
21:37 And she was very, very cagey about that.
21:40 And I think as well, because of this was very much a change for her from going from parts
21:48 where she was absolutely America's sweetheart and she was very much this blonde, bubbly
21:54 young woman to this part, which famously as well, Nicole Kidman is one of the producers
22:01 of this film.
22:03 And Nicole Kidman was also going to play the same part.
22:06 But she plays this English lecturer who on the face of it is actually quite dowdy and
22:14 quite reserved.
22:16 And Jennifer Jason Leigh plays her sister, who is the total opposite.
22:21 And Kevin Bacon has a reasonably large part in this as the sort of the creepy sort of
22:27 neighbour.
22:28 But I'm pretty sure I'd have to double check, but I'm pretty sure he is uncredited in it.
22:34 And it's very much an arthouse movie with really big Hollywood stars.
22:40 But it was, as I say, the breakthrough for Mark Ruffalo, change of direction for Meg
22:45 Ryan.
22:46 So it's a really good film.
22:48 I have to ask, because you mentioned, of course, that she plays a lecturer, you a lecturer.
22:54 I'm always fascinated by the way that in films certain professions are played out.
22:58 And if you either are yourself or you know someone in a profession, how is it represented?
23:03 Very quickly, how did you find that particular representation of a lecturer?
23:06 Did you watch that and think this has got nothing to do with the real world?
23:10 No, actually, I thought, well, because they don't spend a great deal of time on her going
23:14 to class.
23:15 There's a bit of it.
23:17 And that did, yeah, some of it was sort of like, yes, she's not quite a mad old cat lady,
23:23 but she's not far off it.
23:24 And I thought, yeah, that's a big, a big female lecturer demographic.
23:30 Well, well, I'm afraid that that's all the time we have for today.
23:33 So many thanks to Heidi Colthup for joining us and being such a brilliant guest.
23:39 And many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:41 Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45 Until then, that's all from us.
23:46 Goodbye.
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