This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Ryan JJ Lubbock to discuss the films; Aliens, Young Frankenstein, Prisoners, and Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to Kent Film Club. I'm Chris DC, and each week I'll be joined by
00:17a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life. Each
00:22guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years. And
00:26every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia, where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:30has a connection to the county. And now, let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:35He is a young, driven and creative writer and director. He is Ryan J.J. Lubbock. Great
00:42to have you on the programme, Ryan. Hello. Yeah, thank you for having me, Chris. Great
00:44to meet you. And you've gone for Aliens. Yes, yes. This was my first choice of the four.
00:52It's just a fantastic film. I saw it on the big screen only about a year or two ago in
00:57Ashford, as it happens. Oh, really? Oh, man. Yeah, I've been wanting to go and see it on
01:01the big screen for a long time, a long, long time. And also the extended edition as well,
01:06because the extended edition has just got more... I mean, the original's got a fantastic
01:10amount of character in it. You know, all the space marines, all that sort of stuff's great.
01:15But the obviously extended's always add in just a little bit extra life. And with films
01:20like Alien 2, probably a lot more gore and stuff as well, which is my cup of tea. Yeah,
01:25well, I was just thinking as well, because I know with Sigourney Weaver got an Oscar
01:28nomination for this role. But it's very grounded. I mean, it's a very personality, very character
01:34driven film. Yeah. Sci-fi, horror. What was it that appealed to you? Well, firstly, it's
01:41interesting you say that, because there was basically... What James Cameron did was he
01:48shot the very first scene where you meet the space marines. It was the final thing
01:54he shot. And the reason why he did this is so that they would spend three months together
01:57building their chemistry as they work together. So then when you finally see them for the
02:01first time in the film, they have got this grounded chemistry between all of them, because
02:07in reality they would have all been fighting together, being space marines in other places
02:10and doing all that sort of stuff. So it's a really clever little move just to get the
02:14actors to be so incredibly comfortable with each other to start off with, because that
02:17chemistry is so important. But for me, Alien 2 really appealed because it's... I mean,
02:22firstly, I'm a massive sci-fi fan, huge sci-fi fan. I have been for forever. The more high
02:27concept the better. And it's just... It's incredibly fun. It's incredibly well written.
02:35It's incredibly well shot. It's absolutely... For a sci-fi film, it's packed with practical
02:42effects all the way through. I mean, it would be. It's 1986 I think it came out. Yeah. And
02:47it's just a wonderful film. And I think absolutely everybody in there is like the perfect casting.
02:54And I love... I don't know why more films don't do this these days, or more studios
02:58don't do this with their films these days. But take... Obviously the first one was directed
03:02by Ridley Scott. He did a fantastic job and he laid out the groundwork for what would
03:05be a great franchise, which has come back recently with Alien Romulus, which is a pretty
03:09good film as well. But what they then did was they go, right, Ridley did a great idea.
03:15Or maybe it was even Ridley Scott's idea. But this next one is now going to be a genre
03:19change. So the original is just like sci-fi horror standard, whereas this is now sci-fi
03:24action horror instead. And who was the best action director going at the time? James Cameron.
03:30And so they just went, right, well, let's try and get him on board sort of thing. So
03:33him and Ridley obviously had some kind of conversation and immediately James Cameron
03:36says, yes, of course he does. And that was... That is the beginning of the making of this
03:41absolutely fantastic sci-fi action film. You know, it's so enjoyable and so full of
03:48life and character.
03:49This came out just two years after Cameron made Terminator. But watching it again, you
03:55can see that it's from the same director because in terms of the special effects, but also
03:59this was the 80s. This was groundbreaking. But also with a very strong female lead, Linda
04:04Hamilton in Terminator, here with Sigourney Weaver. And I think that's what held it together
04:08because you don't see. And of course, that's the thing is that you don't see the monster
04:12until later on. But up to that point, you know something's going to happen and you're
04:16gripped.
04:17Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, it works even better because
04:20obviously with Terminator 1, you're seeing that for the first time sort of thing, which
04:22is why T2 Salvation Day, I think, is the one that everybody loves because you then have...
04:27It's the same as like with a TV show. Normally the second season of a TV show will be better
04:31than the first unless the first is like an absolutely outstanding season. You know, when
04:35you go and do that second season, when you go and do that second season, you now know
04:41what your cast is like. You know what your actors are like and you can attune that writing
04:45to those characters. And that is essentially what is happening with Sigourney's character
04:50specifically in Aliens because she's just outstanding. She's probably one of the best
04:59female protagonists ever. Like she's amazing, you know, and there's a fantastic scene in
05:06an early portion of the film. I think it's just getting into the second act after she
05:09meets the space marines and everything. And they're in the ship floating around this planet
05:15that's been infested by the aliens, right? And you've got the corporal, the big black
05:21guy munching on the cigar and you've got... I think it's Riggs is the guy that she sort
05:26of like kind of hooks up with a bit at the end. Obviously, that doesn't happen, but she's
05:31together with him and the little girl at the end of the film. And the two of them are standing
05:35there and Sigourney just goes, you know, I feel like I'm standing around like a useless
05:40part here. Can you give me something to do? And they go, well, what can you do? She goes,
05:43well, I can use that machine rig over there. And it's the big yellow robot lifting machine
05:49that she uses to fight the queen alien at the end, right? And she goes, well, I can
05:53go and do that. And they're like, OK, like a woman's going to go and do that. And she
05:58gets in and there's this montage of her. She clicks off button, she goes... And like gets
06:02ready, goes, loads in, picks the box up, moves it straight away. And the two guys stand there.
06:07He just takes his cigar out and they're just like, wow. All right, nice one. And that's
06:12excellent because that tells you that the character is not just impressive to the audience,
06:16but it's impressive to everybody else, which then makes her even more impressive. And she
06:20is constantly this, like, strong oak in a wavering hurricane sort of thing. She's constantly
06:26a character that you can turn and rely on, which is what you want.
06:28Well, it's time now to move on to your second chosen film, Ryan. And you've gone for...
06:33Now, this is odd. I saw this at the cinema just about three months ago. Young Frankenstein.
06:38I saw this at the VIEW in Westwood Cross. Really? Oh, fantastic. Because it was the
06:43anniversary. It was what, made in 74? So it was 50 years. Yeah, yeah. Wow, this is 50
06:48years. Blimey, I didn't realise. Because obviously, it's done all in black and white
06:52on purpose. And that's great because obviously it fits with the Frankenstein tone and everything.
06:59And Mel Brooks got in contact with the gent that made all the electrical equipment and
07:02stuff and went out to his home in LA and just said to him, you know, like, we just want
07:07to have a chat with the guy. And the guy turned around and said, oh, I've got it. I've got
07:10it all in my garage. So Mel Brooks just rented it from him and then gave him the credit for
07:14building it that he never got from the original Frankenstein movie from 1933. So that's great.
07:20And that sort of immediately shows you the kind of dedication that Mel Brooks had to
07:24what is a comedy? You know, I mean, you don't need to be like the most dedicated director
07:29necessarily with a comedy because of ad libbing. You know, you can kind of go in a little bit
07:33hangover style and just sort of go, what are we going to do here? Like, we know we've got
07:37the scene laid out, but you guys just go enjoy yourselves and bounce off each other and stuff
07:41like that. Do like some always sunny in Philadelphia style stuff, you know. But in reality, you
07:46know, his focus on that film is what made it just for me, like one of the greatest comedies
07:53ever. I find it so funny, so quotable. I forget the Marty Feldman. Marty Feldman is exceptional
08:01as Igor. He's just on point, hilarious the entire time. Gene Hackman has a fantastic
08:09role in it as well, where he plays the blind monk and he has this line after he scares
08:13off Frankenstein's monster and he runs out of the house and he goes, I was going to make
08:17espresso as he runs away. Right. And that like fades to black as soon as he says it
08:22fades really quick. And the reason for that is because the line was ad libbed and the
08:26crew absolutely went to pieces laughing and then he could never deliver the line again.
08:33So they had to use the first take of that shot because there was nothing else they could
08:37do. But, you know, Mel Brooks had to have that line, you know, and I think it's what
08:42that scene putting on the Ritz. Now, apparently it wasn't it. Gene Wilder, who had persuaded
08:48Mel Brooks, I believe, and Mel Brooks afterwards said it actually didn't think it would work,
08:53but it did. And it was that is that incongruity of using completely different styles because
08:57because putting on the Ritz would have been from the era that those big Frankenstein films
09:00of the early 30s were made. So in a way, it's sort of of that era, but a completely different
09:04genre. And yet it was well, fused, which is a very appropriate word. Inadvertent fun
09:09in the case of young Frankenstein here and marvellous for it. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Marvellous
09:14is the perfect word to describe this film. It's just it's just consistently so funny
09:19and so clever and little twisty bits and bobs, you know, like it has this twist at the end
09:26that you're not expecting to happen, which is when the two of them sort of combine and
09:29Frankenstein becomes smart. But then what's it? Oh, sorry. Frankenstein's monster becomes
09:36smart. Bless you. And it's such a stupid twist at the end of the film. And then there's like
09:41a whole singing thing, right? And, you know, so like all the way through, Mel Brooks is
09:47just throwing these fastballs that just catch people out all the time. And yet the narrative
09:51and the comedy just run pure and fantastic all the way through. And what I felt as well,
09:56because Mel Brooks, who must be 98 or thereabouts, he's still alive, but everybody else isn't.
10:01And it's what I saw in this is that the and some of them were quite relatively young at
10:05the time, Madeline Kahn, etc. But these were the great you know, they were all very brilliant
10:11at their game. They were great comedians, but they were from you know, they were very
10:14sort of left field kind of people, you know, and they all work together and and they're
10:21not with us anymore. And in watching this, it did feel it was just that moment that all
10:25these great talents came together. And we look back and just think, you know, how amazing
10:28because arguably, you know, that that's never going to be replicated.
10:32Yes. Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. There is an essence of the sort of like an American
10:38equivalent of John Cleese and the fish called Wanda and the Monty Python. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:45Very much sort of like that. But I feel like there was less just shooting into the wind
10:49and see if it hits something, which is what Monty Python did a ton of. You know, there's
10:53a lot of Monty Python, which just doesn't really land at all. Whereas, you know, Mel
10:58Brooks is hit after hit after hit. He's absolutely fantastic. And I just want to say, I don't
11:04know what time we've got left for this one, but I just want to say as well, I'm very grateful
11:08for my dad because he is the one that showed me that he originally showed me the first
11:12one he showed me was Blazing Sabbath, which is also an absolutely fantastic film. But
11:15for me, this one of the two of them, this is my personal favourite. And yeah, it very
11:22It sits with me very personally when I remember watching it for the first time and just laughing
11:26with him through the whole film. We just, it's fantastic. And now me and him quote it
11:31all the time. I just love it. Brilliant. Well, that's about all the time we have for this
11:34first half of the show. However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent film trivia
11:38question for you at home. Which young adult dystopian film did Kent-born director Peter
11:44Roger assistant direct? Was it A, The Hunger Games, B, Divergent, or was it C, The Maze
11:50Runner? We'll reveal the answer right after this break. Don't go away.
12:04Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club. Just before the ad break, we asked you at
12:09home a Kent film trivia question. Which young adult dystopian film did Kent-born director
12:14Peter Roger assistant direct? I asked, was it A, The Hunger Games, B, Divergent, or C,
12:20The Maze Runner? And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact A, The Hunger
12:25Games. Peter Roger not only was born in Ashford, but also completed his education at the Maidstone
12:31College of Art. Did you get the answer right? Well, it is time now, Ryan, to move on to
12:36your next chosen film. And you have gone for Prisoners.
12:41Yes, yes. A film that just blows me away every time I watch it. It's absolutely fantastic.
12:48These two, that year they should have given two Oscars to male leads because they both
12:54should have won 100%. Remind me when this was made.
12:57This was 2013. I think 2013 was a pretty fantastic year for movies. Wolf of Wall Street, a few
13:07other movies like that were coming out then. But yeah, for me, Prisoners is like one of
13:12the most outstanding films of that year, or probably within that sort of five-year gap
13:16because it's just... Firstly, I'll talk about the colour of the film. Because the colour
13:19is... It's my favourite colour grade of any movie I've ever watched because it's so real
13:26and yet still so cinematic. I mean, the choices of the pastel colours that Deakins and his
13:31colour grading team have chosen to pick and light for are just perfect. Like the whole
13:36time. It brings out this moody, grey, middle America in such a fantastic way that you could
13:42watch it with no sound and tell exactly what's happening every single time just from the
13:47sheer imagery. You could almost do... It feels like a points the film could be done entirely
13:53by visual storytelling. It's just absolutely brilliant. And then to go and pair it with
13:58fantastic acting, fantastic dialogue, fantastic twist. The end is amazing. It's so good. You
14:06never really see it coming because it's like a micro twist in the bigger scheme of things.
14:12And that is that the boy that you believe to be the one that kidnapped the children,
14:20which is played by Paul Danno, who also does an absolutely fantastic job.
14:26It turns out to be that he didn't ever snatch them, but he's also the first kid in the town
14:31that was snatched back in the mid 80s or something. And it was his supposed mum who
14:37was doing the snatching the whole time, the mum and the husband, but the husband's passed or
14:41something. But that's not the twist at the end of the film. That's just thrown in there. And you're
14:48like, oh my God, this is just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. At the end of the film, you've got
14:52that fantastic scene where Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Detective Loki, is driving the little
15:00girl. He's just discovered, but she's already been poisoned by the crazy old lady. He's got
15:08her in the back of the car. She's foaming at the mouth. He had a shoot out with her and she skimmed
15:13his head. So he's got all this blood running down his face. And then you're looking through the
15:17window and it's like sheet rain hitting the car. And he's got his foot down trying to get the
15:22hospital as fast as possible. And everything's just building and building and building and
15:25building and building. And the whole time that's happening, Hugh Jackman is also breaking down
15:29and going back to the woman's place at the same time. Everything is just chopping and changing in
15:34the third act, like no thriller I've ever seen. I mean, the closest thriller I could probably
15:38compare it to is Seven. And that is a thriller that's so good, it destroyed the detective cop
15:47genre. There has not been a detective cop genre film since Seven because David Fincher did such a
15:55good job. And I would honestly say that Denis Villeneuve did the same thing with this.
16:00I've not ever seen a film that can hold a candle to this, that's like it since. And I've just seen
16:06Seven on the big screen because they're showing a David Fincher season at Cineworld.
16:11But I'm not sure I've seen Prisoners. But what you just told me is that this is like a reinvention.
16:17I grew up, a lot of the films I watched were in the 90s. But it's like using a lot of those
16:20tropes, a lot of those, the things that made a film work. But turn them on their head,
16:25do something more experimental. Oh, very much so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big time. Yeah. I mean,
16:30every act flips something on its head. And you've just said that you haven't seen it.
16:36And I just realised I talked about the ending. I'll just spoil it for you. It's not for me.
16:40I would highly recommend giving it a watch because it's just fantastic. I mean, I loved
16:46I loved Villeneuve's Dunes. Both Dune movies are fantastic. I've loved his previous work.
16:51I haven't seen Enemy because I'm scared of spiders. But but he's just a fantastic director.
16:57But this for me is will always be his most outstanding piece of work. It's absolutely
17:02just brilliant. And then on Roger Deakins side of things, you know, to get Roger Deakins on a film
17:10like this, which obviously is loaded with a great cast and it probably had a very good budget,
17:16you know, you weren't going to struggle to get Deakins on board. But for him to come with the
17:22ferocity of the colour and the cinematography that he uses in this film is just outstanding.
17:27For Deakins and his eye just matches so well with this film. He's such an incredibly
17:33skilled cinematographer. I mean, he's the he's the king of the modern cinematographers, you know.
17:38And when I got to see him work and then also knowing how much I love this movie and stuff
17:42like that and just putting those two things together, I just it just makes me love this
17:46film even more because I just know how accurate and how much he loves each and every frame he
17:51makes. And you can just tell in this, you know, it's a very creepy, depressing story about
17:57kidnapped children. Brilliant. Well, let's move on, Ryan, to your final chosen film. And you have gone
18:03once upon a time in Hollywood. Yes, we were talking about Quentin Tarantino a moment ago.
18:09Yes, we were. Yes. So, I mean, I've been a fan of QT for as long as I can remember.
18:16One of the first films that was like a sort of an older rating. My dad showed me, I think was
18:23about 14. He showed me Pulp Fiction. And I was maybe a little bit younger than that. Don't tell
18:28my mum. But, yeah, I've always loved him. And when this first came out, I liked it, but I didn't
18:37love it because what my favourite Quentin Tarantino film before this one was Inglourious. Oh, can I say
18:44the part of that word? Yeah, we know. So, yeah. So, like, I absolutely love that one. Yeah. What
18:53sort of happened for me with this was I went, you know what, I'm going to go and see it again
18:56because I feel like I didn't get it. And I immediately went, oh, my goodness, this is
19:01this is outstanding. He's doing something. And this is there's one particular scene very early
19:06in the film, which is why it puts it to the top of the list for me, is the transition between the
19:11first anthology and the second one. Me personally, I think this is the best anthology film of all
19:16time because it doesn't feel like an anthology ever. And yet it is about three separate stories
19:21all happening that eventually get intertwined with Margot Robbie, like later on in the film,
19:26you know. And what was fantastic, what the scene I'm talking about of this, which just changed the
19:32way I look at Quentin Tarantino completely, is when we move from DiCaprio's story at the start
19:40into Brad Pitt's story, the second, the tertiary story. And what he what he does is he transitions
19:48between the two scenes without cutting. He changes his story without a cut. He uses a fantastic
19:55camera move and a change of music. And that's it. And you suddenly move from one character to
20:00another. You feel yourself adjust to the next section of the story. It's amazing. And I went
20:05back and I watched all of his films like back like like once every day for a week after seeing this
20:10to see if he ever had ever done that before. And he hadn't. This is a man who was like 20 years or
20:16more into his career and still making new creative decisions. And I just love that. And what I found
20:22because I saw Inglourious as well and with this film, first of all, I thought, oh, I think I know
20:29the story a little bit because when you're watching it and what is so clever is that he takes something
20:35that we think we know that's based on historical event. But he does. Yes. What only Tarantino can
20:40do because he often is asked questions about violence in films and he really hates those
20:44questions. Yeah. Because what he does, he operates within his own film universe, even when he's
20:48dealing with something, whether it's Hitler or whether he's dealing with the Charles Manson
20:52killings. What he's very adept at doing is is effectively turning it into a cinematic universe.
20:59Yes. Yeah. And there's an element of revisionism and that's somebody really at the top of their
21:03game. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's funny, actually, you say that when we first went when I went and
21:08saw the film, my my old housemates and we brought a couple of other friends along with us.
21:14This girl who will remain unnamed because I don't want to give her a shout out for this, but
21:21she she came out of the film and she went, well, that was rubbish. I was like, what? She's like,
21:27I wanted to see that Sharon Tate get murdered. I was like, well, that wasn't the point. That's
21:31what Tarantino does. You know, he killed Hitler. Like, how can you expect this to be going the way
21:37you expect it to go? You know, and the whole reason he's done that is because the film is not
21:41about that. The film is a love letter to Hollywood and in a love letter to Hollywood, one of the most
21:46fantastic female leads at the time would not be getting killed off at the end. You know, if if
21:52anything, he's going, imagine what it would have been like if Sharon Tate still being here. And
21:56that is that's such a lovely message based around a serial killer. You know, it's such an interesting
22:04choice of direction to take. And by creating these two characters and changing the course
22:08of history within his cinematic universe, it's just something that nobody else really touched.
22:12I remember how audacious it was when the Coen brothers made Fargo and it said at the beginning,
22:16you know, this is based on true events. And of course it wasn't. But that was the whole point,
22:20because some people will watch it from thinking, oh, it's based on true events. Can't wait.
22:23But that's always my problem with biopics sometimes, that they try to be slavishly,
22:29you know, to adhere to the template, but also they need to do something creative and new.
22:33But Tarantino just does it in his own way. And as you say, more than 20 years since Pulp,
22:38for 30 years now since Pulp Fiction, you know, doing stuff that's completely,
22:42you know, untouchable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Untouchable is a perfect word for it. You know,
22:47I still get astounded by that camera moving music change every time, every single time,
22:52because it's just it's just him. It just oozes Quentin Tarantino. The man is a genius,
22:59you know, and I will never get bored of watching his stuff. And there are multiple things in this.
23:04Brad Pitt's character again. Did he kill his wife? He sat there. That's another great one as well.
23:08That is a flashback in a flashback in a flashback. Fixing the roof of DiCaprio's house. He has a
23:15flashback to think about why he doesn't get into the industry anymore. And then with inside that
23:19is then the flashback of Kurt Russell saying he killed his wife and then shows the flashback of
23:24that, which is just brilliant. Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. But before
23:29we go, if you live in Kent and want the chance to share four films of your choice, reach out to us
23:35at KMTV and you might be invited in to be my next guest. But for now, many thanks to Ryan J.J.
23:41Lubbock for joining us and being such a brilliant guest and many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:46Until then, that's all from us. Goodbye.