"The phrase 'intergalactically stupid' appeared... and he responded."

November 10, 2012 7:46 AM

The Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Review YouTube channel has a lot of videos of film reviews from the livestream of their BBC radio show and podcast, going back about five years. They are sorted by genre, film rating, geographic origin and one special category, Classic Kermodean Rants, which includes his reviews of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Sex and the City 2, in which he ends up sing-shouting The Internationale, and Angels and Demons, which woke a man from a coma (mp3, story starts at 5:10, and it is followed up here, beginning at 5:30).
posted by Kattullus (32 comments total)

Thanks! I usually listen to their audio podcast and do enjoy it. I find Kermode to be a critic that I find interestingly opinionated, even if I disagree. These are great links and i'm going to settle down and go through them this afternoon.
posted by quarsan at 7:57 AM on November 10, 2012

That Sex and the City 2 review has got to be one of my favourite things in the world. You've got to love a film review that contains an impromptu performance of the "Internationale" in it.

Another personal favourite: The Moviegoers' Code of Conduct. Should be shown at the start of every screening. Of everything.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:57 AM on November 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

Me & the missus love Mr. Kermode & Mayo. We tend to save up podcasts for road trips. Great stuff.
posted by parki at 8:02 AM on November 10, 2012

I agree with everything he says, so far.
posted by clvrmnky at 8:12 AM on November 10, 2012

Yes! I was shown this podcast recently and I absolutely love it! The Sex and the City 2 review was an especially enjoyable takedown of an awful, awful piece of crap film. These guys are great.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:14 AM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hello to Jason Isaacs!
posted by gnuhavenpier at 8:17 AM on November 10, 2012 [16 favorites]

Kermode's great - they should have given him BBC television's flagship film review show when Jonathan Ross quit. But why do we need Mayo?
posted by Paul Slade at 8:34 AM on November 10, 2012

But why do we need Mayo?

It would be too dry otherwise.
posted by fullerine at 8:44 AM on November 10, 2012 [9 favorites]

Mayo and Kermode have a great rapport, and I think Kermode by himself would be too ranty. The International episode is fantastic.
posted by arcticseal at 8:54 AM on November 10, 2012

But why do we need Mayo?

It's actually a pretty ingenious device, albeit quite possibly accidental, since it seems to be the format of a lot of radio shows: With a second person, the reviews sound more like an organic conversation rather than just a self-important rant at a microphone.

But, crucially -- and this is something certain clusterfuck podcasts that shall remain nameless tend to overlook completely -- there is a clear hierarchy of THE HOST and THE OTHER. The latter doesn't just butt in with whatever whenever, but only prompts clarifications and/or tempers the more ranty bits, and generally serves as a surrogate for the listener.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:57 AM on November 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

I believe Kermode and Mayo are genuine old friends. Those of us who like Kermode tend towards the passionate have friends who have heard these exhortations hundreds and thousands of times and the light eye-rolling and playful interruptions will be familiar. It's not so much a foil, more an anchor which keeps Kermode from waking up with Michael Bay's severed head in his lap.

Another thing I always find interesting is that in a lot of Kermode's criticism there seems to be something he is not saying. In the Sex in The City 2 criticism he doesn't use the word privilege, when talking about The Tree of Life a film which it appears moves him to tears, he doesn't use the word faith and in the Transformers 3 criticism he doesn't use the word Satan.

I think he's a reet clever bastard and there's not enough of them in our media.
posted by fullerine at 9:18 AM on November 10, 2012 [7 favorites]

Fantastic post, thank you.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:19 AM on November 10, 2012

Hello to Fairport Convention.
posted by garrett at 9:58 AM on November 10, 2012

But why do we need Mayo?

For that there's also his blog - Kermode Uncut.

Totally agree with fullerine though, there aren't many geeky enough to listen to Kermode without someone there to tell him to shut up every time he mentions 3D. And hello to Jason Isaacs.
posted by opsin at 10:03 AM on November 10, 2012

Kermode and Mayo is one of the very few things I'd voluntarily listen to on Five Live.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:17 AM on November 10, 2012

There was a guy in front of me at Skyfall eating crisps - crisps! - and I nearly leaned over and shouted "No harder than a soft roll with no filling!" (Obviously I refrained so as not to break the Code of Conduct myself.)

I love Kermode and Mayo, and I think Mayo is vital to the success of the show, to wind up or calm down Kermode as appropriate, and the rapport they have is necessary to exactly how far Mayo can push it when he does wind him up. I've heard most of the reviews on the podcat, but now I'm watching the Youtube channel to watch Kermode waving his hands around when he gets into full rant.
posted by penguinliz at 11:25 AM on November 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

I feel sad for Kermode. Not only did he spend several hours of his life watching Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, but he willingly spent another 11 minutes of his life reliving it and talking about it. If a viewer has avoided this movie (as well all viewers should have), this clip will still expose them to some of the horror. I've had my memories of Transformers III surgically removed, and believe me, the sawing through my skull was a small price to pay.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:50 AM on November 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I must add that Kermode's idea for the finale of Sex in the City 2 is just perfect.

Secondly, I haven't seen the film, but I remain convinced that the Eat, Pray, Love book was far, far worse than the film. I read it for a bet. When I had finally finished I posted the book to Rev Terry Jones with a note that he should be concentrating his efforts on burning this book instead.

No reply, but I live in hope.
posted by quarsan at 11:51 AM on November 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

There was a guy in front of me at Skyfall eating crisps - crisps!

I'm beginning to wonder what it is about cinemas and food. I mean, if you really can't go for two or three hours without a snack, you have some kind of eating disorder.
posted by Grangousier at 12:35 PM on November 10, 2012

Penguinliz says: "I think Mayo is vital to the success of the show, to wind up or calm down Kermode as appropriate, and the rapport they have is necessary to exactly how far Mayo can push it when he does wind him up. I've heard most of the reviews on the podcat, but now I'm watching the Youtube channel to watch Kermode waving his hands around when he gets into full rant."

That seems to suggest you see Kermode as just a freakshow geek, who needs a keeper to poke him with a stick when he's not quite animated enough or give him a calming pat when he threatens to frighten the punters.

I'm always uncomfortable with descriptions of Kermode which suggest he merely rants, because any twit can do that. In fact, his real value is the intelligent analysis embedded in even his angriest reviews. His passion is entertaining, for sure, but it's always at the service of a substantial argument about the film he's discussing - and fuelled by honest outrage that so many big Hollywood movies revel in arrant stupidity.

I can see that Mayo may be needed to make this programme more palatable to a Radio 5 audience, but personally I'd far rather have a solo Kermode podcast. He's quite capable of calibrating his own performance when the format demands it.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:41 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I just spent the last hour and a half listening to these guys. Thanks!
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 1:38 PM on November 10, 2012

That seems to suggest you see Kermode as just a freakshow geek, who needs a keeper to poke him with a stick when he's not quite animated enough or give him a calming pat when he threatens to frighten the punters.

I wouldn't put it quite like that, but there is a performative aspect to it - there are definitely hot button topics that are sure to get Kermode going, and Mayo deliberately goes for them, but what keeps it from being a circus freak and his keeper is that they both know what's going on, and it's part of the show they're putting on. I don't want to suggest it's purely a show of rants, either, just that they're the most visually entertaining reviews when you're rewatching on Youtube. I'd listen to a purely Kermode podcast and I can see that if you're in it for the film reviews that might be preferable, but it's the combination of reviews and the rapport Kermode and Mayo have that makes me happy to give it 90 minutes a week.
posted by penguinliz at 1:40 PM on November 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

That's perfectly fair, of course. I quite accept there's an element of performance in Kermode's contributions to this particular programme, but we should remember that's not the whole story. There's substance to his views as well mere spectacle.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:29 PM on November 10, 2012

Kermode Uncut: Transformers

Transformers II
Transformers III
Transformers IV
posted by zippy at 3:00 PM on November 10, 2012

I'm beginning to wonder what it is about cinemas and food. I mean, if you really can't go for two or three hours without a snack, you have some kind of eating disorder.

Popcorn has been key to the profitability of cinemas ever since -- see if you can spot the cruel irony here -- the advent of talkies.

So there's that.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:21 PM on November 10, 2012

I went to see Ian McKellan's King Lear live on stage in London a few years ago, and there was a woman two seats away eating crisps throughout the first ten minutes. Lear's opening speech, as everyone within a five-seat radius heard it, went like this:

"Meantime we shall express our dark ... RIP, CRUNCH, CRUNCH,
Give me the ... CRUNCH ... there. CRUNCH ... that we have divided
In three our .. CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH ... fast intent
To shake ... CRUNCH, RUSTLE ... business from our age;
Conferring them on .. RUSTLE, CRUNCH, CRUNCH ... we
CRUNCH ... burdened ... CRUNCH, CRUMPLE ... toward death."

I'm exaggerating, but not by much. We were in the second row, so I should think McKellan could hear it too.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:59 PM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

There's substance to his views as well mere spectacle.

When you consider that he was, I believe, going to enter a seminary at 14, these performances could well be considered sermons, something that fullerine touches on in his comment. The radio is his pulpit.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:48 PM on November 10, 2012

I like to think I'm a connoisseur of pans of truly bad movies. (Which reminds me - I need to order Ebert's "Your Movie Sucks".) Kermode's podcasts rank with another Englishman's (Anthony Lane's) print reviews for sheer entertainment & edification value. But I have to vote for Lindy West's takedown of "Sex and the City 2" over Kermode's or anyone else's.
posted by Philofacts at 8:40 PM on November 10, 2012

Kermode does refer to Lindy West's column, but couldn't read it out as it was so "schorchingly rude".
posted by MartinWisse at 3:05 AM on November 11, 2012

One of the opinions he holds which I find endearing is his unabashed love for the Twilight series, which he professes in The Guardian today. Here are his reviews of the series:

Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse (audio only)
Breaking Dawn (audio only)
posted by Kattullus at 5:06 PM on November 11, 2012

Hello to David Morrissey.
posted by feelinglistless at 9:49 AM on November 12, 2012

What is interesting about the way their YouTube page has developed is the way it's embraced third party user (in theory illegal) uploads of the reviews. That seems to be a thing in general with the BBC. There's all kinds of archival BBC material on YouTube not uploaded by the corporation which they haven't sent a cease and desist against.
posted by feelinglistless at 9:53 AM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]