What's on the to-do list for Mexico's first female president? Is the menopause an economic issue? And why did Francis Ford Coppola's pet project bomb at the box office?
Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.
With Harriet Marsden, Elizabeth Carr-Ellis and Emma Smith
Note: this episode includes references to suicide. The Samaritans offer support to people having suicidal thoughts. You can call them free on 116 123.
Image credit: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet / Getty Images
The Week Unwrapped - with Olly Mann
400. Mexico, the menopause and Megalopolis
It's the weekending Friday the 4th of October and this is the Week Unwrapped. In the past seven days we've seen Iran launching almost 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, the Tory leadership candidates addressing the Conservative Party Conference, and a stunning solar eclipse appearing over South America. You can read all you need to know about everything that matters in the Week magazine, but we're here to bring you some stories that passed under the radar this week. Big news not making headlines right now, but with repercussions for all our lives. I'm Ollie Mann, and let's unwrap the week. Joining me today from the Week's Digital Team is Harriet Marsden, plus we welcome back BBC Sport journalist Emma Smith, and for this our 400th episode, blind me, one of my guests from the first ever episode of this show, back in January 2017, its freelance journalist Labour councillor and menopause campaigner Elizabeth Carr Ellis is back on the show, hey Elizabeth? 400 episodes, I feel ancient now. 400 episodes young, could you ever have imagined, all these years later we'd still be dribbling into the ether? Not in those days, I think my first topic was about Christmas jumpers, so that might have been a rehearsal one, but yeah, you've definitely improved since those days, Ollie. That's why we brought you back, just the subtle chastisement. Harriet, you're up first, what do you think this week should be remembered for? Is it Mexico's time to shine bomb? Crowd's shouting, Prezi Denta, in a video from the AFP news agency, but at whom Harriet? So, they're shouting, Prezi Denta, at Claudia Sheimbarm, who was just sworn in this week as Mexico's first female president, so that noise, Prezi Denta, that hasn't been heard in Mexico for all of its, you know, more than 200 years of independence. She's the prodigy of the outgoing president, Lopez Obralord, and the party that he founded, the governing leftist marina party, they chose her as a candidate and she won a landslide victory in June. Yes, lots to unpack, let's just talk to her about what you think might be the most significant thing. I mean, I'm sorry to be so reductive, but essentially, is it that she is Claudia Sheimbarm, or is it that she's a woman? Well, so this is what I thought was really interesting about this story. I mean, it's not under the radar that Mexico's elected its first female president, and she was actually running against another woman, so it was inevitable anyway, and, you know, in the world, one of the world's foremost femicide nations with one of the worst rates of violence against women in the entire world. That's been the very eye-catching bit of this story, but what I think has gone under the radar is just how important Mexico is really becoming on the world stage, particularly to the U.S. and the potential implications in that relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, particularly after the U.S. elections coming up in November. So really what I'm really interested in and what this new president will mean for the future of an emerging world power and what she means as well for the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, which is, you know, the U.S.'s most important trading partner. Yes. Okay. Emma, what do you make of that? Mexico's standing on the world stage in how Shinebaum's presidency may affect that. It'll be really interesting. Mexico is of growing importance on the world stage. One thing that Shane Baum has vowed to do is to cap production of oil in Mexico. Mexico's growing oil producer, she's vowed to cap production to focus on more clean energy initiatives, which could add to stresses that have been increased by crises in Russia in the Middle East. So there's an interesting aspect there. There's also an interesting aspect of what she will do about Mexico's stance on the Ukraine Russia conflict. Her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez, over the door was very critical of the U.S. approach, said that U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine were aggravating the conflicts and that Russia should not have been suspended from the UN Human Rights Committee to allow for mediation to take place. Shane Baum is a left-wing academic. It'll be very interesting to see how she plays the politics in major growth global events, global conflicts, such as this. Yes. I mean, when you contextualise it like that, Elizabeth, a left-wing academic woman can't really think of anyone less suited to discuss matters with Donald Trump. So I suppose how the U.S. election pans out will have an impact here too? It will have a huge impact. I mean, as you said, Trump and women are natural. I was about to say natural bedfellows, which might not be the best choice of words to use. But in the political field, they may not be the people who go together so much. And Shane Baum has already faced a lot of sexism as well. So that will have put her in good stead with dealing with Trump. You know, she's already been compared to Frieda Carlo and with Eva Peran in derogatory terms, which is part of the course for female politicians, of course. I would find it much more interesting if Kamala Harris wins as president because I think that would be a very interesting dynamic to see the two women, both of mixed heritage, both the first females in charge of their country. They have quite similar ideas as well. You know, I think that could really push Mexico forward on the world stage even more. Yeah. And on the science and climate element, Harriet, which you raised, I mean, that was what her academic background was in. She's a physicist. And Mexico has had its fair share of climate problems. What do you think her election, her presidency is going to do for Mexico, standing regarding that? Yes. See, this is where I think it gets really, really interesting. As you said, Mexico's been having these incredibly devastating climate issues. And also their electricity grid is buckling. So she was a physicist specializing in energy, which is really, really, really crucial because she's obviously very, very hot on climate change. And as Emma was mentioning, Mexico also has a very strange and longstanding relationship with oil. You know, it was the world's largest oil exporter, now that's a lot less. But it's still very much in the cultural mindset that school kids learn about the nationalization of oil. And Shainbaum's predecessor, Lopez Obrador, who she's very, very cautious to emulate, she's not going to deviate much from his policies in most places. She's very cautious. A lot of her support depends on his popularity. And he pushed really kind of nationalist, populist policies that weren't necessarily particularly green or particularly climate focused. But I do think that if she's going to deviate in any cautious, careful way from what the path that's been set by her mentor and, you know, a guy who despite significant criticism is beloved by most of the country, if she is going to deviate in any way, I think it is going to be on climate because in particular, Mexico City, which, you know, is a city of 22 million people and it is about to run out of water. She was the mayor of Mexico City. That might be the first place that we see real push for change from her. What are the problems that she have close to home, Emma? Yeah, I mean, there's going to be very little of a honeymoon period for Shane Baumez. As Harriet mentioned, there's the issue with drinking water in Mexico City. There's also the very present problems in Acapulco, the popular resorts city, which has been hit by major hurricanes in successive years. Hurricane John has left a huge cleanup operation needed there. There's also issues with the economy. These, you know, promised various sort of injections and attempts to sort of boost Mexico's flag and financial situation. So while it is obviously a great historic moment that a woman is leading Mexico for the first time, it's 200 year history, she's barely got a feat under the desk and she's already got a fairly significant number of serious issues to deal with immediately. Yeah, worth mentioning she's the first Jewish leader of Mexico as well. What about drug violence, Elizabeth? I mean, hug's not bullets. That's the strategy of her predecessor. Does she need to deviate from that? I like it. I love it. I love it in Spanish, it sounds so good. But yeah, she is more than likely going to continue this. It looks as if she's very much into social justice. She has promised no return to the irresponsible drug laws that have played Mexico. So she's going to focus more on intelligence work, investigations, tackle the organised crime, some of which we've already seen her starting to do, and also look at how we can prevent the rise of drug addiction and the drug problems that have been going on and that have plagued Mexico for as long as I've been alive, that's for certain. Yeah, well, that's it, isn't it, Harriet? Is she offering enough of a change there because the current policy isn't working in terms of stemming the cartels? That's a really good question. I think that the hugs not bullet strategy, the limitations of that strategy are so evident now. So she has said there won't be a return to the irresponsible drug war. But I mean, the cartels, there is an effective civil war going on between the cartels, regular gun battles. It's an extraordinarily high level of violence in Mexico. It's hard to put it in perspective, but more than a hundred men and boys die every day. They're killed every day, not die every day. So the hugs not bullet strategy is much more theoretically popular than it is practically effective. And I think that's becoming very, very evident, but I do think it's unlikely that she'll deviate too much from it. But in terms of the relationship with the US, I think we in the UK sit here and think to ourselves that we are the US's most important significant strategic world ally and partner. That's very much not the case. Mexico is definitely the US's most important partner, especially on the two things that actually probably matter most to the US, one immigration and two drugs. We've spoken before about the fentanyl crisis in the US, which is mostly coming out of Mexico. And the US immigration policy, which is something voters care most about after the economy, it depends on Mexican cooperation. It's been in effect for decades. The US immigration, like deportation, is completely, completely worthless without Mexican cooperation. So these are all much, much, much more pressing issues and they're going to become much more pressing in the next couple of months with the US election because Harris is also vowed to be sort of strong on immigration. It's one of her weakest areas and then Trump has threatened these crippling tariffs on Mexico. He's repeatedly said Mexicans are rapists and thieves and said that they have to pay for a border wall. So either way, there's more important cooperation than ever between the two of them. But I think also something that we haven't mentioned, we've mentioned how important Mexico is in its quite sort of neutral official, but actually there's some pro-Russian factions in the ruling party policy on Ukraine. There's a really interesting thing going on with China and Mexico because unlike most Latin American countries, Mexico hasn't really allowed China a lot of significant in-road, like it's not signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative. With China growing increasingly off-putting for a lot of companies, a lot of big multinationals are shifting production to Mexico. There's a huge amount of global investment happening in Mexico and it's kind of benefits from this free trade agreement with Canada and the US as well. So in so many different areas in energy, in social policy, drugs, immigration, economics, Mexico is becoming more and more important and I really think that it's going to become very, very, very crucial to watch it in the next few weeks. Yeah, something to watch as well during a potential Trump presidency, isn't it? Since he and Vance have been so keen on pushing the idea that they want to keep more American companies in the States, not anywhere else. Elizabeth, what about Spain? King Felipe wasn't invited to her inauguration, I see. No, what happened was Mexico, or rather I'm going to use his nickname because I can't pronounce it as nicely as Harriet does. Amlo, Shinebaum's predecessor, had written to Felipe, King Felipe and asked him to apologise for Spain invading Mexico 500 years ago and Spain just basically said we're not doing that mate. And so they said, right, you're not coming to our inauguration and Spain went, well, that's all right, we don't want to go anyway. I lived in Spain for a while and Spain sees itself very much as the big brother of Latin America still and Mexico and now they are having this little teeth over apologies and things that happened 500 years ago. And Shinebaum's party, Morena, are in control of both houses of Congress, she has significant power. Harriet, is there a concern that her power could go unchecked and risk Mexico being a democracy at all? Well, some people actually are saying that that has already happened. That's not her specifically. That's actually her predecessor. So because his party won this massive landslide in June and took control of like 2/3 majority, he basically rammed through this massive constitutional reform and decided that all 7,000 judges in Mexico would have to be elected. So what that effectively means is that a lot of the checks and balances have been removed because now all three branches of government are now in the hands of one ruling party. So the US in particular, but also like a lot of legal scholars have criticized, they're saying that it's incredibly undemocratic. But then other people are also saying that actually the Supreme Court is very corrupt. There's run by a bunch of corrupt drug money funded elites. So this is putting power back in the hands of someone else, but putting power back in the hands of the political elite is also highly problematic and a lot of analysts are saying it's really going to hurt Mexico's relationship with the US and Canada and put off investors, and the peso plummeting. And Shainbaum has promised to continue with this very controversial judicial reform, and I think that's only going to become more and more and more of a problem. Okay, up next, after a brief meno pause, Elizabeth has a story of women in the workplace. That's after this. Okay, Elizabeth, it's your turn. What do you think this week should be remembered for? I think this is the week when 51% of us got annoyed at not being treated as bloody women. Education and training and awareness raising, you know, that's something I've been fighting for for a few years now. Okay, a few years. Why is it not happening? Well, it is. It is happening. But the frustration I feel that we are still having these conversations about good and bad. You know, this is women's health. There's 51% of the population. It's 2024. Why are we having discussions about whether women can access treatment? Women should have full and open access to treatment and resource through their menopause. They need the information to make the decisions about their own health care. I'm sick and tired of women being fobbed off with or get over it, go and talk to your friend. I've heard women being told, go and talk to your mother and ask her, "It's wrong. We need equal access to quality care in the primary health sector, so they haven't got to go outside of that to get any kind of health and support to get them through their menopause." Noelle McGovern of the BBC Women's Hour podcast, speaking to Caroline Harris there, Labour MP for Swansea East and chair of the Menopause All-Party Parliamentary Group. On Tuesday, Elizabeth, what's the story? The news is, there's a new report from NHS Confederation that found that 60,000 women are off with menopause-related symptoms. This is something that I have been looking at for several years because you won't know this, Ollie, but I think perhaps the last time, or the second last time, I was actually on the podcast the night before I had been in A&E because I'd had palpitations, so badly while it worked, that I thought I was having a heart attack, and they turned out they were menopause symptoms, and only nobody knew that at the time. So this is something that is very dear to my heart, and I am sharing Caroline Harris' frustration that so many women are still struggling to get decent health care, and it's costing the economy a huge amount. It's estimated that it's costing the economy 11 billion a year for women, not just for menopause, but all women's gynecological health care. So we're looking at things like your periods, fibroids, cysts, things like that, or cost in a huge amount because the money has not been put into the research to get it done. If there was one pound more invested in obstetrics and giny services, we would gain 11 billion a year back to the economy, and that's before we look at the priceless cost it is to that woman just to get the health and the health care she needs. I mentioned in the intro that your kind of side hustle is as a menopausal campaigner, so you're very well oiled on this, and I want to go through step by step because you're right, I didn't know that about you, that you had those symptoms before we last met on the show. What are those menopausal related symptoms that you referred to and that are in this study? Because I know some of what you do is educating women as to what those might be when they actually experience them. It is, yes, we developed a poster because there is very little help out there in GP surgeries, and so symptoms range for a whole thing. There are at least 34 symptoms, and everybody knows hot flushes, insomnia, you get a little bit touchy mood swings, but actually that is just the tip of the iceberg. It can go right down to, I felt suicidal at times when I left the weekend I went to work elsewhere. I used to walk down at the Thames every day and wonder how much it would hate to throw myself in because the systems can get that bad, and if women don't understand it, then a lot of them think they suffer from brain fog, so they think they have dementia. I had a woman write to me once to say she had been googling on Christmas day ways to kill yourself without your family realising it, and these are all still unheard of. We get told, you know, you just need to pull yourself together, you just need to get through it, my grandmother got through it, why shouldn't you? So there is a whole load of dismissal of it, and it is not just menopause. One of the biggest things I have found is that with this, a whole load of women's healthcare is being ignored, endometriosis, for example, has gone from having a disgusting seven and a half years to be diagnosed up to almost nine years to be diagnosed. So it is this whole thing of women's gynecological health is so overlooked and it is having such a huge impact both on the people you are working with every day and on society and the economy as a whole. And Emma, if it is difficult for some women who experience these symptoms to know what it is that is causing the symptoms in the first place, you can understand why it would be difficult for business owners to recognise them as well. Yeah, absolutely, I mean, it is incredibly difficult and it could even be sort of heightened by the sort of working environments that we have now. So for example, if a woman is in the office and is struggling with menopause or symptoms, their boss should surely be able to tell if there was something wrong and sort of like be able to do with it, even if they didn't quite understand what it was. Obviously a lot of people now work from home, work over web chats and might not have visual sight to each other, in which case it can be even harder to sort of like either express those symptoms or for the boss, I mean, without wanting to stereotype you, particularly if the boss is like a cisgender male who might not know much about the menopause or menopause or symptoms, to actually be able to be understanding of the issues that are going on. So yeah, it's definitely the case that this is something that's underreported, underappreciated and something that, you know, women in the workplace deserve to be treated better for. And yet, Harriet, it is being discussed more and more, isn't it, the menopause? I mean, it's not something that came up on programs like this, say, seven, eight, nine years ago and is now part of the conversation. There are celebrity advocates will talk about their menopause. Does that awareness help? Well, I think there is a lot to be said for stigmatization and raising awareness. It's not actually putting any money into any research, is it? It's not putting money into trials, menopause, like pregnancy, like periods, endometriosis. Every women's health issue, menopause is under-researched, symptoms are under-treated. And there's not anything, really, that changes if more people talk about it. I mean, I can say that one in ten women say that they have left a job because of menopause. I mean, that is an enormous economic impact to the workforce. Do you think that a destigmatization is actually changing anything there? It's not. And while talking about the struggles of menopause is great to raise awareness, particularly among male coworkers, it doesn't actually account for the fact that only 14% of women are getting the hormone replacement therapy that they need, mostly because of acute shortages, but also because GPs are reluctant to prescribe it because of the misreporting and scare stories about the risks. And actually, a really eye-catching stat, I think, is very few doctors have any knowledge of menopause. Four in ten medical schools don't include it on their mandatory curriculum. So there's lack of knowledge, lack of investment, lack of clinical trials. And that is across the board in women's health. And I think also the people who have this kind of reaction saying, "You shouldn't stigmatize a natural state of life, my grandmother had to go through it, every woman has to go through it." Yes, but we're talking about 25% of people who go through the menopause have debilitating symptoms. That is a quarter of women that go through menopause, they are debilitating, they impact their ability to carry out any day-to-day tasks. That is not a natural stage of life, and the other three quarters of women have symptoms, but most of those can't get the HRT, they need to treat them. I mean, you could also say that a significant number of conditions of diseases of health issues are natural, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't treat them with medical advances, but like every other women's health issue, it is underfunded and deprioritized. I mean, even last week, there was a report about how thousands of women are dying unnecessarily from heart disease because there isn't enough research into how heart disease affects women. There's not enough knowledge in GPs, there aren't enough trials, women are underrepresented in clinical trials, and so they're trying to transplant male treatment onto female bodies. It doesn't work, and destigmatization does not change that. Yes, and I suppose Elizabeth, because it's not a disease, because it's just a process. To think of a comparison for me as a middle-aged man and what I get targeted with online, I see a lot of hair loss ads, or increase your virility or whatever, and some of the medical basis for those products is at best dubious, and yet those products are freely marketed because they're making claims for something that isn't life or death. It's sort of similar with the menopause, isn't it? There's actually a lot of companies out there taking advantage of that information vacuum. There is, there's a huge rise in, it's called Menowashian, which is basically stick the name Menopause on it, and you can sell it for a lot of money, because women are so desperate for anything that can help, and this has now spread so much where, you know, I've seen skin creams that are advertised for menopause, snacks, chocolate's even, I've seen that about time for menopause. What is a Menow snack? I mean, is there any basis in that? It's a chocolate with some sort of phytoestrogen in it that will help you. And the trouble is with food supplements, you don't have as rigorous regulations around them. So people can put in any claims they want. Dr. Jen Gunter, who is the, the doctor who regularly takes on claims from M. Gwyneth Paltrow, created her own brand, which she called menotermine turmeric supplements. She never actually produced them, but she went through all the process to see how easy it would be to do this. And it was, it was incredibly easy. It would have cost to $72,000 to do the high-end one that you wanted to create 8,000 bottles of these supposed tablets, but she figured out she would have made $200,000 profit on it. And that's a very big amount of money to get. And women are so desperate that they will go for anything, I've used them before. I've told women to use them and I've said if they have a placebo effect, but it actually helps you, then you know, as long as it's nothing too serious a thing, go for it. Just anything that gets you through because it is very hard, as Harriet said, just to go to the doctor and be taken seriously and get the HRT that you might need. Emma? Yeah, I should say that. Yeah, Elizabeth is absolutely right in terms of the meno washing. In July, the UK's advertising standards authority banned two separate advertisements from supplement companies for misleading descriptions and misleading sort of customers about the ability to treat menopore symptoms, supplements companies, happy koala and another one called feel. It's definitely an issue. And obviously, you know, the advertising standards agency cracked down on these adverts. So there is a little bit of something being done, but definitely in terms of meno washing as Elizabeth has said there, which is a phrase I've not heard before, which is great and I'm now going to use as we're discussing this. Yeah, it is something that needs to be addressed. And you see a parallel as well with the culture war on LGBT issues. Tell me about that. Yes, I mean, while researching this point to this piece in the standards, which has the rather sort of abrasive headlines save us from the menopause warriors campaigning to make all women my age unemployable. That's you, Elizabeth. You're a menopause warrior. It's a piece by Annavan Prague from February this year. The pieces better have argued than the abrasive headline, but it's a similar thing to a lot of the cultural things we see in which a subject which is less reported on, whether it be, you know, menopause for women or, you know, trans rights in the workplace, things like that, you know, gets picked up by those campaigns about it. It's, you know, it's perhaps celebrity endorsement, but then you get, you know, sort of the backlash. You get the people saying, well, why, why, why, why are we discussing this? There's much bigger issues, you know, get, you get the, you get the think pieces, you get the opinion pieces. And then it goes round and round and round. And the real issue never gets resolved. You see this with pride. You know, you see huge amounts of advertisements now, you know, corporations rebranding, you know, in, in rain, because and stuff like that. And then you get the, the backlash to that people, you know, boycotting woke products or whatever, and then the main issue, whether it's, you know, support for, you know, women go through the menopause, you know, the discrimination that gay and trans people face, you know, things like that gets completely left behind. And it's, it's, it's a frustration that, you know, the menopause, which is, as, as I've already said, something that a huge a number of people in the UK and around the world go through, it sort of gets, gets lost amongst the usual sort of cultural discussions. If there is a menopause culture war, Harriet, what do you think provoked it? You know, sort of simmering in the background for a long time, but specifically earlier this year, the equality watchdog issued this guidance to employers that basically said that menopause symptoms should be considered a disability unprotected under the Equality Act if they had a long term and substantial impact on someone's ability to carry out their day-to-day tasks. And that sparked this huge backlash from columns like what Emma was talking about, that column is specifically in response to this guidance, that ignored what was actually said, which was that it's not arguing that the menopause counts as a disability, it's arguing that the debilitating symptoms of the menopause, which 25% of women suffer, that stop you being able to carry out your day-to-day tasks, that that should be, that should be grounds for reasonable adjustments on behalf of the employer. And that's always been the case that any debilitating chronic thing that causes symptoms that stops you able to carry out your day-to-day tasks should be, like, given reasonable adjustments as an employer. So we were talking about menowashing, and I really think that there wouldn't be such a big lucrative and potentially dangerous market for these menopause products. There wouldn't be such a global market opportunity if women were able to get the HRT that they needed on the NHS, the fact that most women that are going through these debilitating symptoms are not able to get the treatment that they need and deserve, and frankly, like, there's no reason why they shouldn't, but because of these shortages, because of the underprescribing that I mentioned, they're not able to get the HRT they need. You're saying, do you think that it's being spoken about enough if it's a cultural issue, whatever, and I'm like, if one in ten women are saying that they've left a job because of the menopause, if there are 4.5 million menopause or women in the UK, and 25% of them are suffering, symptoms so debilitating that it's forcing them to consider leaving the workplace or taking sick leave, with all the economic impact that entails, how is this not a national emergency? Elizabeth, you are nodding. I am nodding so much, if Harriet was in the same room with me, I'd be giving her a big kiss now, yes, because, you know, the answer is simple, women need education, they need to know their choices, because HRT doesn't work for everybody and it can be awkward finding the right HRT, and most of all, they need support, I'm very glad we have a Labour government that's going to start doing that, I know you're going to cut that. No, it's fine, we're not the BBC, you can say that if you want. Other governments are available. Other governments are available. Up next, has Francis Ford Coppola created a colossal box office bomb? That's after this. OK Emma, you're finishing the show, what do you think this week should be remembered for? Regular Lopelis, more like mega flopelis. Coppola made the film his way on his terms, loads of improvisation, loads of free-flowing ideas, he didn't have any nasty money men standing over him telling him what to do, and the result is, I think, not only his worst film, worse than Jack, but one of the worst films I have ever seen, bloated, indulgent, pretentious, and unbelievably dull. I mean, it says at the beginning, it's a fable, it's not, it's a folly, and not even a grand folly, just a folly. If it's a fantasy only in that it's fantastically dull. The inimitable Mark Kermode, they're reviewing Mega Lopelis with Simon Mayo in their podcast Kermode and Mayo's Take from Friday. Emma, OK, so Mega Lopelis, what is it? And what's the story? So, Mega Lopelis is the new film from Francis Ford Coppola, who is most famous, very famous Hollywood director, director of the Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, and other big Hollywood films. And his new film, Mega Lopelis, had its UK and US release last Friday, and this week the opening box office figures for the film were released and it has bombed hard. It cost a porter $120 million to make, it took just $4 million on its opening weekend in the USA, and a little over £350,000 over its opening three days in the UK. OK, so why is this your story of the week, though, because films flop routinely, and particularly sort of big creative endeavours like this, they are a risk, what's new about this? So, I guess really what's not new about it, this is the ignominish culmination of a four decade passion project for Coppola, who's now 85, and he's been trying to get this film off the ground since 1977, you know, he had the idea and started to production on this film before he made Apocalypse Now, that's how long this thing has been going on for, and it's involved, you know, fights with studios, to the extent that Coppola financed the film himself for the entire $120 million, he sold a winery in order to do so, although distributors Lionsgate took care of marketing costs, so long as the film being in production that things like the The World events to have an impact on its production range from 9/11 through to COVID pandemic actors who have slated to be in the film have passed away, you know, James Khan was set for a role, obviously someone who Coppola worked within the godfather, he passed away during production, so his role was filled by Dustin Hoffman instead. You know, it's been a labour of love for Coppola, and the end result is out in cinemas, and nobody is going to see it. Well, you say nobody's going to see it, you went to see it. Yes, I went to see it. And do you agree with Mark Kermode? So, critical response has been mixed, so some people have said that the film is, you know, it's a grand, you know, sort of ambitious project, it has to be seen to be believed, it's crazy, it's ambitious, all that kind of stuff, and then you've got, you know, Mark Kermode calling it one of the worst films he's ever seen, you know, Folly, all that kind of stuff, I'm in camp Kermode, the film is absolutely shite. And it's all great for the poster there. Thank you. It's quite hard to overstate just how bad the film is, I mean, the dialogue is absolutely abysmal. It has, the main character Adam Driver is a kind of character who enters a meeting, and then unironically starts quoting to be or not to be, you know, to make a grand gesture. It has dreadful special effects, I mean, even by, you know, the poor standards of a lot of modern films, in terms of blue screen, green screen, they're particularly bad here. The performances are awful across the board, Adam Driver, Hoffman, worst forms of his career. Shiloh Buffers, sort of like this sort of preening, dancing, sort of like sub-E-R-Go figure. Just truly awful. I mean, there's a scene in which there's sort of like a Roman gladiatorial sort of like wedding party, which all goes wrong because of the Shiloh Buff character's scheming, and then he sits in sort of like his little office somewhere, and he genuinely does like the Mr. Burns like sort of fingers, sort of like unironically. And he's dressed as sort of like in drag, he's got the point of drag, sort of like Roman drag sort of thing, and he's like, and he's saying, oh, plotting is so much more satisfying when it's done in a dress. And it's like, if that's actually true, but it's just a terrible, terrible line and it just sort of like delivered, there were six people in the screening I was in, three walked out, and there was a guy sort of sat in the road behind me who was just cackling at every single sort of line, which was delivered. It's an unwitting parody and there's no surprise that it's been an absolute bomb, and it deserves to be. Interesting. I mean, if it is an unwitting parody, Elizabeth, you could ask, you know, an unwitting parody of what is this a kind of aged filmmaker, you know, undoubtedly was innovative and brilliant in his time being indulged. Is it a parody of that? I found it very amusing region, a criticism of it, a review of it, that said his message was how creativity and newness has been stifled by old rich men, and I thought, that sounds just like, well, this film is actually, you know, an old rich man who is just completely stifled and the possibility of new money being put into new films and new creativity by going on and on and on and on about his dream. For me, it's, well, it's a long time since I've been to the cinema, and I certainly wouldn't be going, especially after Emma's done in review there. Harriet, do you think that's a problem with Hollywood? Do you agree that, you know, the old guard is still being indulged? I mean, I absolutely do agree. I mean, our previous two stories are about the difficulties that women might face in the workplace. I watched the trailer of this film in preparation for this podcast, and I want some kind of compensation. You'll be getting my bill for PTSD therapy from this. This is some unhinged stuff, I mean, this is, but it also, I think, it has the, the making of a, really the making of a cult classic all over it, just because of how terrible it looks. But yes, I do think, you know, there's a lot of license afforded, these, these outer directors, these aging, former, genius people, like, you know, Martin Scorsese, killers of the flower moon, there is no excuse for what happened in that film. What are you talking about? Tarantino. Once upon a time of Hollywood, about an hour too long, not a lot of peace. Strongly disagree. You're literally listing the films I've been to see. Christopher Nolan, tenant, unhinged, Oppenheimer, unacceptable, like unacceptable, she says, of a film widely praised and nominated for Best Picture. I was so excited, I was so excited about that movie. I actually go to the cinema a lot. I went to the cinema last night, actually, and I was talking to some of my friends about Megalopolis and, and these kind of these outer directors that are sort of later in life, given an unbelievable amount of license to effectively do whatever they want. I mean, this film is different, obviously, because it's self-funded, so this can't really be judged in kind of the same, in the same way. But yeah, I mean, just come on. Have you, have, Ollie, have you watched the trailer, like, have you just, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I really couldn't. I mean, if you ask me, and how generous of you to do so, Harriet, you know, it's usually me asking the questions, I would say that the other directors you mentioned there, I think, you know, Scorsese, no Linterantino, yes, they're all old white men, but they haven't, I think, had a notable decrease in quality. Obviously, their films aren't quite as good as the ones they used to make. Coppola, I don't think, has made a good film since, I mean, even Dracula is not a good film, is it? But at least that was a fun film, and that was 1992 or something, so, I mean, it's been a very, it's been 30 years since he's made a good film. So, I mean, I think, you know, just because he made the conversation in Apocalypse Now and the Godfather, I mean, I think many decades ago, people have decided that he doesn't know what he's doing anymore. So, I think it's a strange one's focus on in a way. I would make a point that the current film that's currently number one in the UK box offices, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, which is made by an old white auto film director in Tim Burton, and that's actually, and I went to see that, and I had a great time. And that's obviously been a huge financial success, it's currently taken £21 million at the UK box office, it's been number one for four weeks. But quite mixed critical reviews, I mean, certainly compared with his earlier stuff, like Edward Cesarhan, there's a masterpiece, you know, like, his earlier work is widely, widely considered to be genius, and I don't think that Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is even close to that kind of quality. No, quite possibly the case, but I think it's, it proves the point that, you know, people are willing to go out and see a film if it's, you know, fun, if it's, obviously, if it's got a recognizable name and stuff behind it, but you know, if it's, if it's fun, if it's like a good night at the cinema, people will go out to see it, and then I has made it, and megalopolis is just not that. In the, in the trailer, the, the, the, the start of the trailer is not about the film, the start of the trailer is about couple of being a genius, it's, he's got the co-star saying genius is often misunderstood at the start of the trailer. I mean, if that isn't telling you exactly how much of a vanity project this is, then I just don't know what could. Can I also add, I really find Apocalypse now the most boring thing ever. Oh, you can all be quiet. Honestly, this is ridiculous. Oh, can I also say it's like-- Oh, controversial. You're also controversial. Also, as I reeled off his hits, I also forgot that he directed Captain EO, which is the best 3D film in anything park anywhere in the world, ever, and I will hear no different, even though the Muppets 4D exists. Oh my gosh, I won't argue with you, ever. This is, this is, that, that was an extraordinarily controversial statement from Elizabeth. I can't wait to see what, how are these going to deal with that? I think, I think there's nothing left to say, my thanks to Harriet Elizabeth and Emma. You can follow this show for free, you can get every episode as soon as it's released by searching for the week unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts, and then tapping follow. You can also get six free issues of The Week magazine with a trial subscription when you go to theweek.com/subscriptions. In the meantime, I've been Oli Man, our music is by Tom Morby, the producer Oli Pitt at Rethink Audio, and until we meet again, to unwrap next week. Bye-bye. (Music) [MUSIC]