I did. I know you've lived like all over the world. Did you ever live in Los Angeles? I don't like Los Angeles. I got very badly sunburned and almost punctured myself on what was surely a heroin needle on the beach there, my first visit. Within hours, it was my first like 20 hours in Los Angeles were awful. Yeah, that's enough to put you off. Yeah, that sticks with you. Hello and welcome everyone to the two real cinema club. I am not Dr. James Rizzica. And I am not Andres Lorente. We are, I was going to say we are, why have I written this in my notes? We are coming out on this episode. Personally, I'm not coming out, I don't know about you, but but we've watched two movies sort of about coming out, or be they, the experience of coming out more than a hundred years apart, I think. So two movies which suggests that a lot has happened in a century and also some things have kind of stayed the same. You're right. The films are about what? 35, 38 years apart, something like that. But you're right, the eras, they cover are distant. I think Maurice, what are we going to call it? Morris or Maurice? I think we have to call it Morris. I've been telling everybody we're watching Maurice this week. And it was only when I sat down and actually watched it this week that I realized that I've been making a fool of myself everywhere. So Morris we have watched. Which is what 1910 to 1914, doesn't click anywhere like that. And then, well, the thing about am I okay from 2022 is it also sort of covers a couple of years because it had its release at Sundance in January of 2022. And it's just hitting the streaming services here now in June of 2024. And you may well be asking yourself, why has that been a two year delay before this film got distribution widely? And maybe we will be able to answer that question for you. So, okay, well, let's start with the new movie, am I okay? Directed by, and this is another name that I'm going to get wrong, is Tig Nataro, isn't it? Well done. Well done. You did not get that wrong. I was practicing. She co-directed with her wife, Stephanie Allen. I'm so glad you said that because I also wasn't sure how to pronounce her surname, either, which is A-double-L-Y-double-N-E. I've been saying a line all week and clearly it's not a line. I've just been calling everything Maurice this week. Everyone, Tig Maurice, Stephanie Maurice, Dakota Maurice. But from a script by Lauren Pomerance, I had to look her up. But she has been a writer on SNL. She's been a writer on community. She's been a writer for many years on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. She wrote some episodes of Me, Myself, and I Strange Planet, which is the kind of comedy animation. So, she has come from TV comedy and maybe we'll have something to say about that when we talk about the film. I think I will for sure. Yeah. You are on the ball today. I tried to wrong foot you with the introductions and you did not miss a beat. And then Tig Nataro, where did that come from, man? That's good. I don't know because you told me the other week. That's why. Shall we get a little bit deeper into the story of "Am I okay?" Should we ask that question more seriously now? James, am I okay? Are you okay? That's a good question, but only you can answer it. Well, I'm still okay after seeing this film, which is a good sign. Features Dakota Johnson as Lucy. And here, I might not get this one right. Sonoya Mizuno as Jane. Yeah, I'll buy that. Yep. He'll pay in Civil War a few weeks ago, like I'm struggling to remember which character she played. Well, that's right. Yeah, but she wasn't Civil War. Civil War has, I've bucked that out successfully. So, I'm in a happier place now. Jermaine Fowler plays Jane's boyfriend, Danny. Kiersey Clemens is Brittany, who is a massage therapist in the office where Lucy, that's Dakota Johnson, works as a receptionist. Are you ready for a synopsis? I would love a synopsis. Okay. And it's not a long film, so I'm not expecting this to take a very long time. Yeah, I'm trying to shorten my synopsis, but not my synapsees. I want to lengthen those and shorten the synapsees. We open on blue skies and beautiful pictures of Los Angeles. So, we know where we are, but the film really begins with this diner scene where Lucy and Jane have what looks to be like a routine dinner date together, where Lucy always orders the same things. What is it? A veggie burger and a sweet potato fries or something like that? Yeah, it sounds good. Lucy declares, "You don't know me," to which Jane replies, "I do know you." I think that's a really heavy moment. I think that really tells us a lot about what's going to happen. They establish that Lucy is just friends with her current dating partner, Ben, and perhaps she has some feelings for women. Eventually, we get to one of these cliche scenes. Oh, we're going to need the cliche squad. I'll just say that. She opens a window in her office and sees the new massage therapist, Brittany, with whom she starts to have a flirtatious friendship. Is there some romance there? Meanwhile, Jane is destined to go back to her English roots to open a London office of her advertising agency. I think that's what it was. I think it is. As far as I can tell, she spends most of her working in life typing on a large Macintosh. When I'm guessing that's what advertising is, is it maybe? I think so. It was a nebulous career at best. She will surely be joined in London by her long-term boyfriend, Danny. Although devastated the thought of losing Jane to a career move, Lucy explores a physical relationship with Brittany and Jane and Lucy go to a lesbian dance club called the womb. I think I remember that. Together, which leads to some requisite, dramatic, overplayed, and unbelievable tension between the two best friends and it leads to their friend breakup, which had to happen, right? Will their friendship be lost forever? You can answer these questions if you want to. Will Lucy discover love with a woman and come out to her friends and to herself? Will Brittany move on from her dalliance with Lucy to return to her quirky ex-boyfriend in Portland, Oregon? Will Danny accompany Jane to London? And if not, Danny, then who? That's good. That almost makes me want to see the film. I described it so vividly. So, I don't know about you. I came to the end of this film, so I think you would call it a kind of lesbian comedy. Is that the name of a genre? I think it's a kind of comedy of manners with a sort of sapphic tone. There was a title that came out in the film that probably should have been used, which was "Vajay Scream". Yes, yes. It was a gag moment. I laughed hilariously. It didn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it was nice, and it was funny, and I think that it's probably a better title than "Am I okay?" But I got to the end of it, and I thought, have I watched a movie, or is this like a sitcom pilot, or is it just a sitcom episode, or more even than that? I came way feeling, you know what? I feel like I have watched somebody's stand-up routine that has been stretched into a series of dramatic sketches in a kind of Seinfeld style story. That's kind of what I came away from at the end. This film didn't quite feel like a film to me. It felt like a sitcom, and one that's, I hate to say this, not quite funny enough. Now, if you read interviews with Lauren Pomerance, it sounds very personal to her. It sounds very much like it's the story of her life to a certain extent, and I agree with you. I wrote a few baffling things to myself. I said, is this writing a comedy with a story, or is it a story that has a little bit of comedy in it? It's not long, which you can have some great films that are 80 minutes, but this one has the five minutes of dragged out credits after 79 minutes or whatever of film. I never felt like I was really watching a cinematic piece of work. It really did feel like there were a couple of gags in there. A couple of them were good and funny, but they came out of nowhere. I think that's what it was. It wasn't that they came out of the situation so much, or the characters so much. A lot of the gags just sort of come out of nowhere. So as a result, it's a little hard to take seriously, because it does feel like either a series of sketches, or I think you've given a good analogy to a stand-up routine that is usually that's about the length of a stand-up routine, maybe an hour and a half at most even an hour. So there's not a lot of gristle there, not a lot of meat to the story. I mean, part of the reason it feels like a stand-up routine that's been turned into a drama is because there's quite a number of gags. Most of the characters, I would argue, have a very similar voice. People largely speak the same way and have the same tone and the same sense of humor. And it feels like it's been squeezed a little bit like the way they make sausages. You start up with one long tubing and you just squeeze it here and here and here, and it's been squeezed with some hero's journey sort of turning points. So you have like a premise, oh, two friends, one is coming out, and then you have a deadline. I have a new job in London in six months, and then they meet some allies and some enemies. And there's even a moment that you could call the oldest lost moment just before the third act. It feels like it's a series of gags that have been edited into making a movie. Yeah, I didn't feel like there was too much original here, and I felt like the ending I foresaw at that moment where the "All is Lost" moment can become pretty clear what's going to happen. So it's easy to forecast that. And I mentioned in the synopsis, the breakup happens so suddenly, and over such a minor point, really, it just seems like, oh, I've got to break these people apart so that they can come back together in the third act, and that's exactly what happens. And it just didn't feel believable at all to me. It was just forced attention. So I think I wouldn't mind if there were hilarious gags that left me clutching my sides, but apart from a couple of amusing moments, it didn't quite hit my funny bone, I must say. Didn't I save Vijay's cream, though? But do you know what I wrote Vijay's cream in my notes as well? That's clearly the funniest gags. Nothing's going to beat that. Should we ring the spoiler bell at least? Oh, yes, please. We can talk about it with impunity. I'll ring the bell. Oh, there it goes. Echoing across the Los Angeles Hillscape. Personally, I felt that one of those important screenwriting precepts that I'm sure you and I've talked about often is the promise of the premise. You set up this simple idea, and it promises a bit of adventure, doesn't it? And when you have this set up of two girlfriends, they live these kind of busy urban lives. One of them is coming out. The promise of that premise is the one obvious plot point, which this film doesn't deliver. And I'm not sure what I think about this. Did you feel that this film was demanding a plot point where Lucy announces that she is in love with Jane? I felt that it was like the inevitable turning point of the film. This is the thing which had to happen. And it doesn't happen. And as a result, I think the story ends up being just a bit too bland and easy. Overall, for these characters, for Lucy coming out as gay, I think the stakes are fairly low, the risks are fairly low, the price she has to pay is fairly low, there's a bit of crying. But I reckon, in my notes, it's about as deeply emotional as getting upset, trying to assemble some Ikea furniture and then finding that you've put the wardrobe door on wrong. Oh, no, I'll have to unscrew it and reverse it and do it again, bursts into tears. I mean, that's about as existential as it gets, I think. She kind of figures out, well, actually, maybe I prefer girls. And then immediately there, she has this very attractive work colleague who's absolutely falling all over her. It feels like nothing comes too hard for her. And I was thinking, well, if the plot makes the step that the person that she's really in love with is Jane, and then you have a love triangle, and then you have real stakes and something that could genuinely go badly wrong, then you have a bit more of a story. But at least unless there is something subtle, which I in my crassness didn't detect, I don't think it goes down that road. Firstly, I think you underestimate how frustrating it is to assemble Ikea furniture, because I cry, I shout, scream, I swear. So that said, I think you're right, that there would be so much more tension and more realistic tension and more existential tension if that were the case, if she had feelings for Jane that they possibly, they couldn't possibly really act on. That would make a much more interesting breakup and reunion, I think. There's no reason for them to split up when they do. There's this little bit of, what is it, that Jane starts kissing a woman, they go out to the womb, and Jane starts kissing a woman, and Lucy storms out, and then they get mad at each other. It's a workplace break up too, right? She goes to the office where they don't really do anything, I think, advertising. But they do have Sean Hayes come in, and he's another comedian, he has his comic moments too. But again, it's not coming out of the story so much as it's just who they have as actors and actresses and what they needed at a certain time. But they have this big blowout, it's very public at her workplace, nothing seemed real about it. It was just, and I think you're right, if it's something much more personal and much more intense and consequential, it would have been a better breakup and would have forced a much harder reunion. Everything does fall together pretty pretty easily for the characters here, and then maybe that's because it's a comedy, it's supposed to be that light, but you still need to have some depth to the plot points. But you have a good point, I hadn't even thought about that, but that is a good idea to ever fall more for Jane than ever ramble around with Brittany, and that relationship doesn't go very well. Brittany's not really committed, and she has this boyfriend, and there are all these there are all these convenient outs, and we have to get out of situations as well, so it's not that it's not difficult, it's enough for the characters, it's also too easy for them to get out of anything that's even remotely difficult. I mean, I don't really see how Lucy can't be in love with Jane, because she only knows three people in the whole world, doesn't she? One of them is Ben, so she's not interested in him. One of them is Brittany, who immediately goes to bed with her, and then the only other person she knows in the world is Jane, so how could it not be a thing? It's a small, small city in Los Angeles. I looked it up, it essentially says 12 million inhabitants, and yet as far as the film goes, no, actually there's about five, there's five people in Los Angeles, plus a waiter. A very nice raider, he doesn't seem to remember their orders through a little bit. Yes, even though they ordered the same thing. It's worth hesitating a little while we look at the opening image of the film, I wasn't going to interrupt you earlier, but the opening image I think says quite a bit about the film so far as you do have some pretty cute still photos or girlfriends hanging out, and then the opening images of two young women who are sitting in a cafe consuming things, basically, or at least planning to consume things. That's sort of what the movie is, isn't it? I think it's these two young women with their lives ahead of them and prospects and opportunities, and they're consuming things. I think the film kind of maybe inadvertently sets out its soul in that first scene. There weren't a lot of great scenes that really struck with me. If anything, I was sort of jolted by some scenes instead of being particularly impressed with, you know, there's not a big filmmaking here. There's not a lot of directorial statements, and that's okay. If you're telling a good story, I think that's okay. But there were some more scenes that just didn't make sense to me to include than there were really compelling scenes, and I heard an interview on National Public Radio here where they were really going into how compelling that first scene is when I think they've gone out to dinner, they're a little bit drunk, and then Jane comes over to do a slumber party thing, so they're both on the bed talking, and maybe that's that moment that you were thinking about. She's just announced that maybe she likes women, and this is the woman who means the most to her in her life, and why aren't they together? It's actually not that deep a scene. I don't know, maybe I'm just a cold-hearted person, but I didn't really feel that emotionally attached to the scene or the characters at that moment, and that's kind of the that's one of the, like, crux scenes of the whole film, and it doesn't really come off that well, and then there's it's not long before there's this bizarre gosh, it's an underwear scene. I don't know how to describe it, but Brittany comes over and she says, "Oh, let's take off our clothes and try on each other's clothes and maybe divide clothes," and it says, I think this was their first date, maybe this is their second date, I don't know, just. Yeah, and it was just it, and there's at least you're thinking, "I want to buy that she likes me, if she likes me, is that possible?" Yeah, and it seemed like you just want to get Dakota Johnson in her panties and nothing else. It was an odd moment for me, and either I'm cold-hearted, or I'm old-fashioned, or some sort of combination of the both, but the scenes didn't really add up into a story that really took me on the journey that I think the writer and the filmmakers thought they were taking us on. Maybe, and again, maybe we're not the audience for this film as well, I think we have to consider that, but at any rate, I think it could have been better written, and it probably could have been better directed as well. You remember when we talked about The Fall Guy, and my big, well, one of my big complaints about that movie was that almost all of the character interactions are just meat cubes, and there are like seven or eight meat cubes one after another, and this film is kind of the same. I started writing them down and I'm thinking of clever names for them, so it starts out in the diner with an eat cube, and then you have kind of Jane's job, it's a work cute, and then at the restaurant they have a toilet cute, where the two of them are in the toilet together, but it's cute there, and then they're on the bed having a bed cubed, and then quickly comes around, and they have a cook cute, and then a try-on cute, and even the argument at the office I wrote, "argue cute", every scene is kind of cute, and that's nice for one or two scenes, but when every scene has that same tone, you start to ask yourself, "am I wrong for expecting a little more?" No, not at all. I don't think so. I think that, yeah, I was expecting more, because I like TIG NUTAROSH, which is very, very funny. I think Dakota Johnson's really become a very good actress, I really like watching her on screen, but I just don't think the material's there, and then you start thinking about why did HBO Max or whoever they are now wait two and a half years to get it out, and they're probably just looking for, I don't know, the right time, or they were obviously hesitant about this film, but I've seen Dakota Johnson, I've seen TIG NUTAR doing them, the podcasts and the TV shows to try and publicize it, it just seems a little strange because I can't remember it, I saw it two weeks ago, you can't imagine that they remember this film at all unless they're, if I had to re-watch it just to figure out what it was about. I can only assume that Dakota Johnson, having just been in Madam Web, I think I'm guessing that it was assumed that the Spider-Man, the Spider-Woman, Spider-Girls film would be a big tentpole release, and so Dakota Johnson will be on everybody's mind this spring, so that was exactly the right time to get another Dakota Johnson pictures. Quickly cash in on the fantastic success of Madam Web. Unfortunately this strategy failed because Madam Web was so... But it was too late to change the release schedule, so I'm guessing that might be how it's arrived on screens now. I'll just, I'll just, a couple other just ridiculous scenes that kind of prove our points here. The hammock retreat scene, which is actually taking it to our acts in that scene, it's just ridiculous, it's not funny, it's not very good, and you think, okay, maybe if you cut these moments you could make it a better film, but there's, there was, you know, when you're in an 80-minute film, if you start cutting a five-minute scene, you're down to, there should be an hour-long special on network television or something, it changes the nature of it, because there's not that much to cut really. I mean this hammock retreat they go and it feels like it could have just been cut and pasted from a completely different film. It feels like it's an SNL sketch. It does feel like a sketch. It could be quite an amusing SNL sketch, completely as a standalone, it doesn't belong in this film. No, and then the last one is kind of the climax, which I saw, as soon as both of the women sort of experience these, these breakups or these let downs, these relationship disappointments at the same point, so they're on the same journey, basically, and then of course Lucy ends up taking Jane to the airport, and then she says, "Oh, by the way, I'm going to spend two weeks to help you move into learning. Oh, you are. Oh, really? And great." But then there's this bad driver gag that is really silly, where she just can't park in the driveway, and she can't back out, and in Los Angeles you have to be a good driver, because everyone drives everywhere. So, I mean, yeah, there are a lot of crappy drivers, but they at least know some of the basic functions of the car and can manage to navigate a really difficult city to drive in, because you're easily lost without GPS or something. So, and some of these gags just go on too long. The hammock thing, they probably needed the minutes, but the gag is not solid enough to sustain the length of the scene, and similarly the driving gag just outlasts welcome, I guess. So, it's just another argument for how it feels more like a collection of gags as opposed to like good characterization moments or good story moments. Yeah, yeah, that's a shame, isn't it? I sort of feel like they're, I don't know, they could have been, really hilarious, cute, lesbian comedy with teeth, with this cast, and there are some talented people involved. But it seems a bit crass to lay all at the feet of the script, and to suggest, well, if the script were better, then maybe the whole thing would have worked. But that's just what I'm going to say. I think the basic scaffolding on which the film has been built just feels a little bit lacking. I think ironically the script gets to where it should have been a lot earlier late on, and it shows a little bit of potential. It's when she's starting to date women, and these are kind of done as a montage, whereas those are the moments that probably would have been naturally more hilarious, would have really tested her on a journey, would have really taken her out of her comfort zone. I mean, it's amazing how quickly she retires from the one job that might sustain her a little bit, and then she can start painting again, and she's creating this beautiful canvas is suddenly that she had neglected for, I don't know, years probably when she was working in the office there. There really could have been, I think, some growth and some funny stuff coming out of that, and some honest difficulty about coming out and start making this decision to open up, be brave, expose yourself, and start dating women. I think that's a really compelling moment, and it could be hilarious as well, and that would have been gold if they'd milked that. But it really comes very late, and it's done more as a quick montage of her life change, and it's just not as effective, I don't think. It feels like it's like buying like an enormous double cheeseburger, and taking it out of the box and finding that the meat is just a tiny, tiny little story between two massive pieces of bread. It's just, yeah, where's the beef? That's what I'm trying to say, where's the beef? Where's the beef? Well, I was just going to say it's a veggie burger that she orders, so there shouldn't be any beef in any way. Do you always want to follow it by a vag eye screen? We should, there's one thing Los Angeles is famous for is police, probably, maybe. You can tell I'm trying to feel my way on, certainly, towards the segue here, it's not really working. Yeah. So I'm just going to drop a dime of phone the cliche squad. The great thing about the cliche squad is that they know how to navigate that difficult Los Angeles traffic, so they come, they make it there. They have siren for a reason. I've written down, I've written down three cliches, but then I'm sure there are plenty more. But the three I've written on my little list here, we've sort of touched on it already. Workers who do no work, so there are two work places in this film, but no work really appears to happen at either of them in any kind. I want one of those jobs. They look great. Can I just get paid to turn up BQ? Is that all right? Yeah, I had the same thing, sustainable jobs, but with no responsibility. And it's really no customers, which is surprising because they're the ones who pay for the workers indirectly. I was getting in the way. Do we have to have customers? Clifian number two, Tiny World, I've written how many inhabitants does LA have? It's five. It doesn't seem to be any more than that. It's a tiny, tiny world that they live in. I mean, do either Jane or Lucy, do they not have parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, other friends, dependents? I mean, they appear to be people with no network of any kind whatsoever, don't they? Well, there's the cat character who's a sort of a ridiculous office meet of Jane, who's kind of purely kind of comic relief, without very good gags. My third, and then my third cliche is hard, not hard. I've written where hard things are basically not too hard for any of these characters. Luckily, the first woman Lucy meets is biocurious and super attractive. Luckily, Jane gets a dream job handed to her on a plate. Luckily, Lucy can leave a job and be in painter with no means of support. Luckily, she has no friends or family or colleagues to disappoint or please or explain things to you. It's just, my god, life is so streamlined, isn't it, for these characters? No mess, no fuss. This is, I think this is the difference between writing for some short forms, such as comic television or sketch comedy shows and actually fleshing out a full story over 90, you know, 120 pages and getting characterization in as well as a believable story and a satisfying ending. It's a big jump. It's a big jump. So I hope Lauren Pomerance can do it in the future, but I think this is, you know, this is the first effort she got to produce, which is great. I mean, it's a big jump in either direction, I think, because I think to go from writing features to them writing 22-minute comedy episodes, that is a hard job. Exactly. Now, it is amazing discipline and structure to make these 22-minute comedy episodes work. You know, they're fantastic. They were written when they worked. It's brilliant. I'm not going to say that someone who writes TV comedy is a slacker because, you know, that's one of the hardest gigs. But these may not necessarily be skills that transfer to the feature space. I don't know. I don't know. Good point. Good point. We shared that one about jobs and the importance of those good, steady work. We share that one as a cliche. My two others are kind of similar. And the first one is goofy yoga classes and goofy yoga instructors, I don't think I've ever seen a serious yoga class anywhere on television or in the films. I love yoga. I do it mostly alone these days, but classes are not really like that. Sure, you get the once in a week, once in a lifetime, once in a month. I don't know, goofy instructor, but they're not all like that. And then the other one is just the goofy self-help retreats, the hammocking journey that Kat and Jane go on. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's not even, it's not funny. It's not even possible. I mean, I get it that the world is ridiculous and that's supposed to be absurd, but it's, it just, it didn't work for me. It didn't work for me. Yeah. I want to spend the whole week in the hammock. I mean, I laugh now, but maybe I'm laughing for all the wrong reasons. I wouldn't prefer it. We're laughing at the hammocks, not with the hammocks. Yeah. And I think, you know, you've got one or the other. You could either do a goofy yoga class and goofy yoga instructor, or you could do a goofy retreat. But I think it's, you're, you're stepping on thin ice. You're doing both. Stepping on thin ice. It's not much of that in Los Angeles, but we've managed to find some. Yes. We sure have. Well, should we have a break, maybe unwind with a goofy yoga class? That's it. And then come back and talk about a very different kind of coming out. And we'll, we'll talk about Morris. This week's Two Real Cinema Club is sponsored by easy meal kits. If you're like us, maybe you find it hard to plan meals. You stuck in a loop, making the same dishes again and again. Or do you find yourself buying takeout too often? Now, now you're feeding the pinch. Well, then subscribe to easy meal kits. 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Boy, I feel like pairing my box of instant meal kit with a glass of water from the tap. I'm getting hungry, but maybe we should move on to our next film. There is a pattern for me. So let's move on to us at other film, the second part of the double bill tonight, Morris, from 1987, directed by James Ivory, produced by Ishmael Merchant. So back in the 80s, I've mentioned Ivory, so James Ivory and Ishmael Merchant were like a massive force in the UK film industry and not so remembered these days. I think so at the time they were making these big art house hits that broke out into the multiplexes. They made these characteristic heritage pictures. They were even at a name for the genre. They did adaptations of classic literary novels by Henry James and Ian Forster, and they made a lot of them, and some of them made a lot of money. And yet these films aren't quite as well remembered these days, I think as maybe I thought they would be. I don't know, had you seen Morris before? I had not seen Morris. Now this was new for me. This is '87, but you know their films go back to the early 60s. So I remember seeing the, I think it's called The Householder, which takes place in India. That's like 1963. That's a great film. But that goes way back. So they're 20 years into it by this point. I think they met in the late 50s. And I only realized that they were a couple in doing research on this film. Yep, same here. I didn't realize that either. It's kind of quite a sweet story. Yeah. They're big hitters, a room with a view on Howard's end for the remains of the day. I think, I guess they count as the people who discovered Helen Abonam Carter, or the reporter to prominence. And you look back on the films that they made now and it's a fantastic, five-star array of well-known British and American actors in film, after film, after film, just fantastic casts. You know, they absolutely nailed that kind of heritage picture look and feel. I also didn't know James Ivory won an Oscar only in 2017 for his work on the screenplay for Call Me by Your Name. Yes, I was confused by that. But yeah. So he's got enormous and very distinguished career, but only gets the gong very late in life. Do you have any other questions for the cast? I must say, it's one of the films that comes to mind, I think, when you talk about the process of coming out. So it's a good opportunity, I thought, to see it. And best of all, the Cambridge scenes were all filmed at my old college. It's another film shot at your old college. I got to make a film at one of my old colleges, so I can say most films seem to be made at my old college. It had only been made like, I think, the year or two years before we arrived at college. So, you know, people were kind of still slightly buzzing with six-hour video, they made a film here. And was it another country that was also filmed there, is that right? No. I must, having watched this film, having seen another country fairly recently, I do realise how much of a much of these two films are. They go together hand in hand, don't they? But no, another country was filmed in a building that looked a lot like my old school. There's that punting scene. There is a punting scene. There's a film that looked a lot like maybe a punting scene in another country. There's only so many film-based punting. I've punted once in my life, and it was in the exact same place I feel, but it was actually Oxford, but Oxford, Cambridge, same thing. Do you want to fight? Let me tell you the story of Morris, then, and we'll talk about it. So, we are in Edwardian, England, before the First World War. And Morris Hall, some years after receiving a bewildering explanation about sex from his schoolteacher, he's a young man. He arrives in Cambridge to read classics, and there he finds himself falling in love with Clive, a fellow student. After an uncertain start and a bit of toing and froing, they enjoy some happy candid times together until social pressures force them apart. Morris is sent down, never to return. So, instead, he becomes a stockbroker. Clive becomes a barrister and an aspiring politician. But when their old college friend, Risley, is arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment for propositioning a soldier in a pub, Clive realizes that he's going to have to marry a woman and hide his true self if he wants to get on in life. But can a heartbroken Morris cope with disrejection? Will he disintegrate? Will he marry a woman also? Or will he find a new love from an unexpected quarter? Yes. Oh, spoiler bell, spoiler bell. I realized that I stole all that questions at the end of the synopsis from you. I'm glad I went first today because I had lots of questions. And then you've finished with lots of questions. I have questions. So, did you enjoy this film? Isn't that what the cue part is in the LGBTQ queued questioning? Questioning. Is it questioning? Did I enjoy the film? Did you enjoy the film? Oh, you're trying to think. I am having to think. I felt it was it was overly deliberate, took a long time to get where it was going. I felt like for 1987, I'm thinking about me in 1987, I probably would have liked this film more. And I did like their films were now it felt a little bit. I think their pictures in general always struck me as kind of stuffy because they are doing this heritage thing and they're doing it very well. And it's, you know, it's a good looking film. But I don't I don't have a lot of sympathy for the characters, I guess. I don't have a lot of camaraderie with the characters in general. But there is some nice classism in here. There's some touches, especially late in the film that we'll talk about. And I think it's a very brave film for 1987 for me. This is a pretty brave film, which is interesting because, you know, the films that we were seeing, I think that we've talked about on the pod we think in another country and this one are much more daring than anything that was happening in the United States at that same time. Okay. And we were more into Beverly Hills cop kind of stuff and 48 hours and another 48 hours. And I think, you know, those kinds of films were the dominant trends, I think, in 80s Americans in Emma. So this is this is a brave piece, I think. I think it might have been too brave for a UK audience, actually, because after having a big hit with Room with a View, I don't think this really garnered very much of an audience. So it was kind of a theatrical flaw. Yeah, if you look at the gross, it's not strong at all. I mean, it was I think it was about $2 million to make and be $4 million to to grow something like that. I'll have to look again. But I do think it's a brave film. I think it's definitely it's a great production. I think I think this is a great production. It's not necessarily a super compelling story or super compelling characters for me. But it does come off as, you know, this is cinema. It's definitely a work of art. Yeah, it's more cinematic than am I okay? Yes, fair enough. For sure. I mean, I think it's more emotionally heightened than am I okay? Yeah, there's more at stake and there's more to risk and more to lose. The opening image, I think, is a sweet little summary of what the film has to say. In so far as the first thing you really see on screen is two kites flying high in the sky above a sunny beach, isn't it? Yeah. And then as the camera sort of moves across to the left, it's joined by some other kites and there are some boys on its kind of school jaunt off to the seaside. But this idea of these two kites flying together high above the rest of the world is a lovely image which the film comes back to when it comes to its end as well. So I think yet again your theory of extrapolating the meat of the film from that opening image works perfectly well on this film. I will say it's an amazing contrast to the actual last image in this film. Do we need this spoiler? Can we just keep rolling? Shall we ring the spoiler? I think we ring the darn thing. As we've noted, well, a lot of people won't see this film in 1987. There will still be some people who haven't seen it now. Yeah. Okay, I'll read about it. The reason I want to jump right to it is because you're absolutely right. It's starting to, you know, you think it's the freedom of flying free, these two kites together. The last scene is actually Hugh Grant sort of locking himself into his head of his, you know, pretend heterosexuality. He's like closing all the windows, drawing on the shades on the bedroom of his wife. And it ends on Hugh Grant who is by this point, he's become a pretty minor character actually. It's an interesting stuff happening in this film because he goes from being possibly a co-protagonist or protagonist. He ends up being a very minor character by the end. And symbolically, he has chosen a different life which he probably doesn't believe in, but he probably doesn't like or want. And there's kind of a big use how he and his wife feel about each other in that last scene. He's sort of adoringly hugging her, but then he's closing up everything. And he's just shutting himself back in. He's not coming out at all compared to the two new couple lovers who are flying high as kites kind of. I mean, I think interesting contrast. Yeah, he's always like he's looking out through prison bars, isn't it? Yeah. He's kind of looking out through the window as his wife hugs him. It's the one remaining open window or the one remaining unshudded window. And he's reflecting on the life not lived, isn't he? The path not taken? Yes. He's specifically looking at that exact path. Well, there's the one I'm not taking. Yeah. He lies too, right? She says, "Who are you talking to?" And he's just practicing or trying out a speech or something like that. That is a compelling moment. It ends very well. It begins quite well. So again, they had the beginning and ending image that nailed here in this film. It's perfect. I did feel that the first half of this film is a lot more sure of itself than the second half, I think. I did make a couple of notes. The first being that there should be some genre, which is called young men climbing in and out of windows movies, because that's exactly what happens in this film. And that's what happens in another country as well. It's young, well-dressed men with foppish hair climbing in and out of windows. That's what they do. Those early scenes, I think it's a pretty cute scene when Simon Callow was the teacher teaching the 11-year-old Morris, the ins and outs of sex in an entirely kind of pathetic way on the beach. And he's unable to say the word penis. He has to use Latin at the end. He says, "Never mention this to any one boy." He says, "What did you make out of the drawing, though? I guess it's the female genitalia on the beach in the sand. He's got a stick and he's drawing something into me. I couldn't make anything out. I mean, it looked more to me like a poor Picasso pastiche on the sand, rather than something out of a biology textbook. It's a cubist tree or something like that. He was just... And he was all worried about other people coming and seeing it, but they wouldn't make anything out of that. But following that, the scenes all set at King's College. I think there's have real authenticity. I feel like there's a little bit of pace there. I just felt like that first half of the film felt like by far the most believable. And there is this sweet scene of the two of them. They get out of Cambridge to kind of grandchester or little shellfoot or something like that one. There's little villages and they have a lovely day out. And the second half of the film, I think it's just a little bit less sure of itself. And I think most of the reason for that is because that's what the book is like. So a terrible bore that I am. I've read the book again this week as well. Good for you. And the film is very, very like the book. The film basically contains pretty much everything that is in the book. It's not a long book. It's only a couple hundred pages, I think, 210 pages. So everything from the book is in the film. And the film's added some extra material. But E.M. Forster himself studies classics at King's College in Cambridge. And that first half of the film, that first half of the book feels authentically autobiographical. But I don't think he was a barrister and I don't think he worked on the stock exchange. I don't think he was a stockbroker. And I think that second half of the film is very slightly more fantastical. And I think that's why it feels just a little bit less hanging together and a little bit less authentic. Yeah, it also might be that it was difficult material to imagine putting on screen to, I think, I'm assuming it was kind of controversial in 1987 in England. I mean, it was. Interestingly, it's a bit of history. This is an entirely unfair question. Do you know what this film is really about? Do I know what this film is really about? I'm guessing I don't and you're being nice. So I think this film is really is about section 28, which is a bit of UK legislation, which came in, which is being debated in the late '80s and then went on the statue books in 1988, which was basically a sort of anti-homosexuality bit of legislation, which I think it prohibited. It's something I get prohibited. Anything that would promote homosexuality. So it was aimed at schools and libraries and in the arts and basically it was a statute to try and rub out all this terrible disgusting talk of gayness. And the scene which isn't in the book, which does appear in the film, is the scene which sees Lord Risley proposition, a soldier in a pub and then get arrested and he's sentenced to six months hard labor. I think that scene and the reason it exists is because there was a very hot debate about section 28 at the time. And so there were plenty of people in the country who were trying to protest against section 28, but it did become law. I think it was law until something like 2003, I think. So a surprising bit of pretty regressive backward legislation that was coming in at the time that this film was being made. And I think that is the underlying theme of the film, although it's not explicitly stated. And I think the film makes a lot more sense when you understand historical context that it's made in. Yeah, definitely. And that's what a great way to respond to a law like that and a movement like that in a country. To come up with a piece of art that explores it, exposes it, judges it. I think that's great. The book apparently, well, I don't know, if you read much Forster, I've read a couple, I think. I don't think so. I'm trying to think what I've read. No, probably not. I think in a room with a few, just fantastic. Howard's end is just a remarkable terrific, terrific book. In fact, that Morris is supposed to be his worst book. But you know what, I've read some real drops this year. So reading Ian Forster's worst book was still the real pleasure. It's still beautifully written. He wrote it in 1913 to 1914, and it wasn't published until 1971. Because I think he felt that it was not publishable because of its theory and because of how exposing it was. I mean, I think his books are often about people undergoing big emotional upheaval, which they keep in check. And it's all about kind of, it's a very sort of stiff upper lip. Yeah, we're British and we don't talk about that sort of thing. I think all of his books kind of have that underlying theme and it very much goes along that line. But it is a beautifully written book actually. It's lovely. I think the book has the same problems as the film. I think the characterization isn't outstanding. I think the inner life of the characters isn't particularly three-dimensional or nuanced. I came away from the film feeling much the same as I did from the book, where I felt a little bit like I was watching it from the outside in. But I didn't really key into the proper inner life of the characters. Is that true of the book as well? Or is there a lot of explanation of the characters and their thoughts in the book? I mean, there is quite a bit of characters and thoughts, but it's still not tremendously deep, I think. I mean, the affair that Morris has in the second half of the film, and that kind of closed it out the film, that's like the third act of the film, I suppose, is with this game's keeper, or Scudder, Alex Scudder. Their relationship in the film is very much the same as their relationship in the book, which seems to slightly come out of nowhere. And then I find it a little bit difficult to understand exactly what the characters' motivations are. Morris is a bit rude to Scudder, and he's annoyed that the GameCube wouldn't accept his tip. And then later on Scudder kind of sneaks into his room and climbs in through the window, because that's what people do in these films. And they get it on. And then later on then Scudder threatens him with blackmail, but then changes his mind again, and then they feel close again. It all feels a little bit opaque, and it's kind of swerving from this weight of that. And I didn't feel sure that I really understood what his motivations were, or how he ticked. And I think that's why I think I used the word "deliberate" earlier, because Scudder, he's introduced a long time before he becomes kind of a significant character. It's 30 or 40 minutes, probably before we start to see him show some interest in the Morris character, and he's working on the property of Hugh Grant's character, because it clived on him. Yeah. So he's like, he's the game- Reed, I think. So Pembert. Pembert. Pembert. Pembert. Pembertley. Pembertley Park. So he's a gameskeeper. So obviously, Hugh Grant's character is super rich, and I think the class politics definitely play here. But he's set up so early, and I think you're absolutely right. It still seems like it comes out of nowhere. So we see that character early, but we don't see that he's interested in each other. There's no reason for them to be interested. There's very much a hierarchy of the characters, because Morris is out there shooting game with, I think it's Clive's brother-in-law, something like that. And it takes a long time to get there, but then all of a sudden, they're both really just absolutely in love with each other. They have two encounters, and then they're going to spend their lives together. And it counters the deliberate nature of the rest of the film, because we take a couple of hours more or less to get there, and then things move suddenly all at once. I think for me, this is probably true of all of their films. They feel very stagey and talky, and hearing now that some of those films come from forest literature, you are taking something that's much bigger and trying to put it into a couple hour movie. It's difficult, but I think it's also just like the settings and the staging and the way you're using these would have sort of become like parlor pieces or steegee theater kind of settings. It just ends up feeling kind of talky and not you're not getting characterization through what they're doing so much. You definitely get their class through what they're doing, or what they're smoking, or what their jobs are, or how they, what they wear to dinner. But it's all kind of superficial. So I think all of the films feel they're so indebted to or so much investigating of class structure. We definitely have class structure in the states too, but all these films seem very foreign to me because I felt like you have to understand class and cast in England to understand these films fully. And I think I'm a little bit on the outside. So I felt doubly on the outside because there is definitely a cultural divide here, but I agree with you that what you see on screen and what you hear doesn't really match up with what the characters are really feeling or doing. And you really feel distant from them as a result. So I never get fully engaged. And I think I did mention at the very beginning when we talked about it that I didn't sympathize with the characters a whole lot, even though they were going through some real hellish changes or hellish cultural pressures. I didn't, I didn't relate to them that sympathetically. Yeah, it's a bit sort of a bit difficult to like them, isn't it? I mean, you're exactly right about that. Think about class. It's difficult to fully explain any British cultural artifact without referring to class. I think it's so ingrained into every aspect of the way of life in Britain. Watching this film did remind me a little bit when my cousin Chad from Canada, he came to visit us in the late 80s. And he was like really surprised when he arrived to see that we didn't leave in the kind of house that you see in this film for the like, you know, dark wood and fussy Edwardian details. Because I think for a long time, this was the picture of England, which was projected internationally. This is what England looked like to the rest of the world. Exactly. People expected. I mean, he didn't say it, but I think he was expecting a butler when he arrived, frankly. I mean, I think we kind of quite despoited him with that, you know, a little suburban bungalow. But in a way, it's not just the 80s, that is still, there is a kind of Britain which still exists, which is like that, not for many people, but for some, it does. So, yeah, class remains, yeah, an enormous cultural force in the UK. I'd love to talk a little bit about Ben Kingsley because he does appear, and this is a, what, couple of years after Gandhi, maybe? Yeah. It's probably on set for what? Two or three days at most. It doesn't look like he was in more than one space, really. Yeah, it's like four setups or something, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First, I kind of had two, and then he came back and was in a couple other setups. So yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It's four. It was, it's funny because he plays an American too, and I think maybe that was to help, like, bridge this cultural divide. I couldn't figure it out, but, and he says something. He, I think we should mention that he's, I guess he's like a mesmerist or something like that. He's trying to hypnotize the word. Yeah. I wrote down hypnotists, but mesmerist. Yeah. He's trying to hypnotize Morris and either cure him of his own homosexuality, or at least have him acknowledge it. And King Lee suggests that he moved to a gay-friendly culture. He mentions, I think, France and Italy. And he says this weird line. It says he, England has always been disinclined to accept human nature. And that comes from a yank. So that's obviously a big thematic statement that the, the, the English would just, would not accept this, but that's very funny. Having seen another country where you see, like, it's been generations of men have gone after middle or cherry school. And for a few years, they've had dalliances with other men or young men. It seems like it is very much closeted, I guess. It's very secretive, but at the same time, it's very, very much a part of human nature. So it was, it was an odd line and he's, it's an odd, it's an odd sequence of scenes that he's in, I think. I would have cut that honestly. I don't know. But if you can get Ben Kings, if you can get Gandhi due to the film, right, you gotta go with Gandhi. But it is quite odd. Yes. It's, I think that, that's just kind of reminded me. I think there is a whole essay's worth of, of ideas about, about this film. And it's, it's reflecting, it's relation with the penis, basically, this film has like a very strange relation with the penis, doesn't it? It starts out with, with a man, he's unable to say the word penis. Yeah. You're on here, he's able to draw a picture of a vagina on the sand, but then kind of sort of fluffs it when he tries to draw a penis. And then later on, Maurice goes to see like the family, Dr. Dr. Barry, who inspects his penis with a pen, doesn't he? He can't even touch it. He lifts it up with a pen in order to do his examination. Well, so if I try to examine anyone at work, just using a pen, I would probably be told off, I think. I loved that scene because that's, what is his name? Danum. Danum Elliot. Danum Elliot plays the, the doctor and he seems to kind of put out to have to examine him, but they don't, it's not like he listens to his heart or lungs first. Like the pants come off. He pulls out the little pen to examine the penis in the morning. Can you tell if someone's gay by looking at their penis? What? I think I must have missed that lecture. Yeah. What is this scene about? And he finally says homosexuality. This is unspeakable rubbish. Yeah. Very odd. And then there was another scene that really caught me off guard, which is when Maurice is on a train and he's just sort of sitting across from this older man who immediately just makes this very violent, aggressive pass at him and tries to hug him and kiss him on the train. It was very, very abrupt. But I guess it's, I guess to, I mean, it just seemed an odd way to suggest that, okay, there are other gay men of various ages out there that we're just not seeing because we're trying to repress this whole thing. And then the big theme statement for the whole film at one point, I think Maurice says to Durham, he says to the new grand character, can the leopard change his spots? So it does talk about the nature and is this natural or not? So there's two that line from Kingsley, I think, and a bit about the leopard changing his spots. I imagine both those lines come right out of the book, but those seem to be big theme statements for the whole film. Right. Yep. Yeah. Yes. The film has a strange relationship with facial hair as well, doesn't it? Because I wrote in my notes, Maurice and Clive keep swapping the stars. During any one particular scene, one of them might have a moustache, but not the other. But then later on it's to be the other way round and then we swap again. Yeah. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure how that works, whether it means something or if it's just like a little nod to the audience. I think it would have been great to examine the moustaches with a little pen. I wrote down, I came away feeling the theme of this movie was an imperative, which is telling you live your life. Yeah. Because by the end of the movie, Maurice does go and live his life. It's not the life that he was born to. Apparently, forced to really struggled with the ending to the book and wrote many, many different endings and it changed several times, I think. Yeah. But I think the ending that we get in the current published version, which is the same as the ending that's in the film, is one where I think you can feel confident that Maurice will go off and live with Scudder, but he will probably no longer be a stock broker. He may or may not be living in Britain. He'll maybe go off somewhere and they'll have a smaller, less grand life. But they'll probably be happy because they can be themselves. Hey, Italy ain't so bad, Translate and even Argentina. It looked like they were going towards Argentina, but yeah, I agree with you. I think the ending was a little too clean for me in some ways because I figured there's a whole lot of crap that they're about to go through when they actually come out and try and live somewhere. And I think that might have been a really interesting story that I think if you'd cut some earlier, you might have been able to figure out how to get that drama in there. And it's just the fact that it ends on you, Grant's character is a little bit odd, but I mean, it works. But I think it was just a little bit too clean because this is one of this is a long film. You're waiting for something that really happened. And there's not a whole lot that happens, but there's some very, very compelling things that happen. But I would just be interested in seeing like what would it really be like if they were an out couple in England in 1914? I think that would have been an interesting film, but that's obviously not in the book. And they do seem pretty well wed to the book in their films. Yeah. We've seen I've got to say this, which is that the main visual impression I came away with the end of the movie was that Hugh Grant's hair. Hugh Grant overall, but his hair, especially so beautiful, I would say enough to make anybody start to feel special feelings. I'm getting the special feelings just thinking about his hair. I want to inspect it with the special pen. But that does lead me on to a quick round of my favourite game. I'm not going to pretend to be Hugh Grant, but I am going to ask who am I? Who am I? The hair's on Hugh Grant's head. Oh, if only. The mustache. Can you be a mustache? I've tried it before. I might try it again. If I had half of the hair on Hugh Grant's head, I would be a very happy man. Oh my God. I did come away feeling that I'd watched a film or a film with quite a lot of doctors in it in Morris and didn't feel particularly like any of them. But the person I'm most afraid of being, I came to the end of the film. The first thing I really, really don't want to be is Simon Callow's teacher, the guy who tries to explain sex without using any sex words at all. There's something that kind of distills the British relationship with sex in his character. He gives Morris a far more comprehensive sex talk than my parents ever gave me. Yeah, illustrated. That's, I suppose I really don't want to be. Out of all the people, I am one of those boys in the background at Cambridge, simply because, this is crass, but I have my supervisions in rooms just like that, in that building, in Gibbs building. I went to that chapel. I picked up my post from that Porter's Lodge, Morris and Clive tell each other they love each other on the steps to my library. And especially that heck, I've been a lot of young men in the late 80s and early 90s had that haircut at Cambridge. You know, and I had to take a hair back then. I aspire to that huge grant haircut. So if I'm anybody, I am background boy at King's College. Did you see anybody that replied to do a view this week? I didn't. I didn't do very well on this at all. You mean you're not one of the five only people who live in Los Angeles? I think, now that you mentioned it, I probably am one of the five people in the Los Angeles. Okay, I think I want to be Lucy. I love that job, but I differ from Lucy in the sense that my side gig of writing, I would actually keep pursuing. I wouldn't just drop that so that I could focus on drawing little doodles while I'm not doing any work at the office. So it's kind of Lucy-like, but I feel a bit more like Danny where I don't know, just non-commidally hanging out with the girlfriend for how long were they together? Six years and then all of a sudden not going to London. I kind of went to London at instant, so I felt a little bit like Danny, the lame boyfriend. Yeah, you're the anti-danny, you went to London. And what was his gig? Was he a DJ or something? I forget what he- I think he- I'm guessing he's a music journalist. Yeah, it was something that he could do anywhere. If you could make a living out of that these days and you're an affordable apartment in Los Angeles, well done you. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of money in music journalism these days. Yeah, exactly. So either Danny or Lucy or Dan Lucy or Lucy or Luc Downey or something like that. Some kind of, yeah, some some average amalgamation of this. There was some sort of a ruckus outside, so. Oh, exciting. I hope that doesn't make it. We're talking about real life now, not the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a truck hitting all the potholes on our street, something like that. A lorry. Yes. So that's, yeah, I think somewhere in there, I couldn't, I really always find a hard time relating to a lot of the characters in the period pieces or the heritage pieces. Because I just, I don't, my footing's not there. I just don't, I don't feel like I'm on terra firm. That's a completely different world for me. But there's some funny characters. I loved the doctor. I liked, I liked the, the, the Alex Scudder character that's Rupert Graves. I thought that was a pretty interesting character, but at the same time, he didn't, he didn't make a whole lot of sense to me either. The connection they had, I couldn't believe it, but I liked the idea that he was this gameskeeper. And, you know, he had time spoke very well, but his writing was pathetic. Remember, like, he obviously had some schooling, but his family seemed a bit more well to do than he was. There were a lot of confusing things about it. And then, but I did like that character. I just didn't believe that they would fall in love. But hey, love, love conquers all, something like that, right? Love conquers old. If it was said on the modern day, Alex Scudder could use chat GPT to write a better letter. That's right. That's right. That's how it would work out. Remake Morris, but call it Maurice this time. We're spell it differently, please. Right. So two films about coming out. Let's do our synthesis. See if we can draw the two together. See if we've learned anything in the last 100 years. Spokes chin, I wonder. I think we've learned that at the very least, it's easier to come out now. I think it is, you know. I wrote down here two films about coming out, but they couldn't be more different, which is a good thing. Something we should be proud of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, when you think about the pinch in Morris, the pinch is this scene where the body gets arrested for whatever indecent exposure or soliciting or soliciting sexual favors or whatnot. And he's going to go to six months of hard labor in prison or something like that. And that's the moment. I mean, it's pretty clever. It's the moment that says to Hugh Grant's character Clive that he's going to change his ways. Yep. And there's this very odd spot where he goes to Greece ever so briefly. And they had mentioned Greece, I think the vice of the Greeks when they're reading Ovid together, Clive and Morris are eating Ovid together. And it's, you know, I thought for sure, actually, I thought that they were going to go to Greece together and they were going to love one another in the Greek way or whatever. But then he has this big moment where he just realizes he has to change his character for society. And the idea of, it's almost the exact opposite journey for Lucy in MIOK, right? She needs to actually realize that society has changed enough for her to come out, just come out already. So they have very different journeys in that way. And I think that's a great, it's a great little sign of progress in the world, I think. And they, the films, as we said, are what, maybe 80 years apart? Oh, no, 100, the little 100 years apart. Yeah, 110 years apart, I suppose, the events of the movies, yes. I mean, I wrote down, I made a little list. Morris is afraid of arrest, imprisonment, being ostracized, having to leave society altogether, the disapproval of everyone, shame, secrecy, self-loathing, conversion therapy. And I wrote a list for Lucy. She has to, she is afraid of awkward embarrassment. She is a bit too shy to kiss the various extremely attractive women who were throwing themselves at her all the way through the film. Yeah. And the other thing, other terrible difficulties, she has to cope with leaving her blueberry muffin until after her workout. So they are both facing hardships, but they're hardships of a different kind. So again, when you watch these films back to back, you know what, there's one word that comes to mind and the word is progress. Yeah. For all that I get a bit down about the state of the world, you know what we do live in better times. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that's something kind of to be celebrated, frankly. I think so. And if I could put a little plug in there for progressives in general, none of these acts of progress or movements come from conservative thinking. I don't think in this. When you think about it, Morris is really a critique of the old ways and conservative thinking and just overt classism, I think. And progress doesn't come from those people. Progress comes from people who want things to change as opposed to stay the same. So had to go out on a little limb there, would you agree with that? I mean, is that OK? I think thank God for people who want to make things a bit better. Yep, absolutely. I would just add that in no way do my opinions reflect those of the two real cinema club and its producers and its listeners. It's only the sponsors that we need to stay on the right side or. Well, I feel like for all the kind of all that that tears and emotional upheaval, we've come out with a bit of a cheerful note by drawing these two films together. Yeah, something to be proud of at last. Just enough time then to talk about what else has been playing at this theatre. As usual, I've got to force my way to the front of the queue because the thing that's been playing at my theatre is only what was playing at your theatre, I think two or four weeks ago. Oh, which is that we have been watching Ripley on Netflix. I think that was that I was playing at your theatre. It wasn't a two or four weeks ago. It was. Yeah, about two months ago. So on your recommendation, we've sat down, we've been watching either an episode or half an episode of that every evening. Oh, good. Yeah. And it's just fantastic. It's great. I keep having to pinch myself. I cannot believe that a limited television series can look quite so beautiful. Yeah, just looks absolutely fantastic. It's incredible. It's a skillful decision, very clever to make it in black and white. But just scene after scene where I'm pretty much aghast at how beautiful it looks just amazing. And tremendously tense, great performances, very tight. We are one or two episodes from the end, so it's all to play for now, but enjoying it very much. So thanks for the tip. Oh, yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. I envy you. I think it's sort of eight episodes total or something like that. So it ends up being seven plus hours of television, real writer's project, Steven Zillian, really going back. And I think he I guess he's more more loyal, more faithful to the writing than for the to the book. And Anthony. Mengele. Mengele. Like in between us, we got it. Which I like the film too, honestly, but I think that the the series is excellent. And it takes us to Italy. And I'm going to stay in Italy for a quick moment because a recommendation to myself was the Pompeii, the new dig, which we talked about last episode where the documentary on public television here about digging up a new neighborhood of Pompeii and discovering things. And that led me to something I watched as a child and wanted to see again Pink Floyd live at Pompeii, which is excessive. It's not very good. There's not nearly enough Pompeii in it. But I am I'm almost finished with it. It's been a little hard to go through because the music is not at musical at times. They do a couple of great songs, but they also just do a lot of noise. And I always wonder how is it that great musicians don't realize that they're just making a ruckus of a lot of noise and they should stop immediately. And then they go on for 10 minutes. At what point in their career did they record this? Is this after Doc's out of the moon? I think it's after I want to say either metal or is the name of the album Alk Echoes. It's before Dark Side because Dark Side's like 74. I think this was 1972. It's not sure why it's in the Colosseum at Pompeii. They do show they occasionally like split in images of paintings and Pompeii and some of the columns and streets and things like that. But there's not a whole lot of it in there. And it's mostly the first 10 minutes are a lot about David Gilmore's nipple, his right nipple to be precise. Because it's obviously a hot day and they're playing their instruments without shirts on in the daytime scenes. And he's not wearing your shirt. So it's his guitar strap and his fender Stratocaster. And then sadly the way the film is cut you see basically his nipple, but you don't see his head. And then there's a lot of trickery where you see the same image 16 times in this grid or matrix of the same image. They're playing a lot with some of the newfound technologies of the era. And there's all this sort of fetishism around Nick Mason who I think is probably the weakest player. He's the drummer in Pink Floyd and there's way too much of him on the screen throughout. It's just odd. But again I saw this when I was a kid maybe 1980 or something like that. And I was really into Pompeii and I was pretty already pretty much into Pink Floyd. So at the time it was great. And now it's not so great. But I went back to public television too. I watched the no direction home. It's the Bob Dylan Martin Scorsese documentary about the early years of like going from being a folky to picking up the electric guitar and being in a rock and roll band. And it's over three hours. But I broke that up and watched it bit by bit. And that was great too. So hats off to public television for sending me in another direction with sending me to Pompeii and then sending me no direction home. I feel like public television should be the home for progressives. Isn't it? It is. Absolutely. Have we yet another vote for progress? Have we mentioned them recently the progressives? We got to mention them. We got to mention Tom Hanks because I did see this play that was sort of written by Tom Hanks recently a reading of it. And it was not good. But that's not Tom. Tom speaking too directly now. I think your short story on which the play is based although I've never read it. I'm sure that's very good. I just think maybe it's not to be a play. And if you still want to do the podcast, you are always welcome. I'm sure he's I can hear him typing an email as we speak furiously complaining about how he's been treated on a podcast. Texting it. It's coming onto our screen lines. Can I? This is something I didn't mention about. Am I okay? Texts on screen. This is kind of a cliche now. I hate it. I hate it. It's like bringing people won't read a subtitle to see it understand a foreign film, but they will read a text message of just absolute trite quality that has nothing to do with anything and gives you no information. It's just it. I don't like seeing people's phones. I don't want to go to cinema or turn on a film to watch people text each other. Please make that cliche squat. Please make that go away. I hate to vent here, but at the end of the show, because we've had a great program and now I'm just getting angry. Shakespeare's that cloud. I can just imagine millennials rolling their eyes at us right now. Listen to these old geezers. Next time in between the texts, we'll be watching a film with a title which is very close to my heart. We are watching I used to be funny. We will be comparing it too. Wait a second. Is this a Tom Hanksville? It is. I think it is a Tom Hanksville. Tom, we're going to talk about you extensively and positively when we review punchline from 19 maybe. T.A. type thing. Oh my god, close to Morris, except this one we can pronounce properly punchline punchline. I really hope we don't watch punchline next week and it tends that I've been saying the name wrong all these years. It's actually a punchline punchline. Thanks for joining us as always. You can find us on Instagram at tworeelcinemaclub. Read the blog at tworeelcinemaclub.com. Comment on our YouTube channel or email us as Tom Hanksville's two real cinema club at gmail.com. Short pod this week, not bad. We're getting back to a manageable length. Maybe because the films weren't too long. We'll try and keep this trend up. Thanks for joining us as always. We'll be at the popcorn counter next week doing some of those. And they're back with Tom Hanks that we got. Yes. Then goodbye everyone. [BLANK_AUDIO]
