Look how his only films to be buried with. We're back baby, Hello and welcome to a new load of films to be buried with. My name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a writer, a director, a paper merchant, and I love film as the great Roomy once said you were born with wings? Why prefer to crawl through life? If you can see Oppenheimer on an Imax screen? Why wouldn't you?
Do?
You know what I mean? Fair enough for me? I agree. Every week I'm invite a special guest over. I tell them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their life through the films that meant the most. Of the previous guests include Barry Jenkins, himesh Patel, Sharon Stone, Mark Frost, and even Bled Clambles. But this week it's the brilliant legend that is Adam Buxton. Remember you can watch all of Ted Lassos seasons one to three and all of
Shrinking Season one on Apple TV. Plus head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where you'll get an extra twenty five minutes to chat with Adam. We talk about secrets, he tells me his favorite beginning and ending to a film. You get the whole episode uncut, adfree and does a video. Check it out over at patreon dot com Forward slash Brett Goldstein. So, Adam Buxton is fucking amazing. I've been trying to get him on the podcast since I started it, and I
was very grateful he gave me his time. We recorded this a while back on Zoom and I've been holding on to it for a special occasion to release it. You all know him from the Adam and Joe Show and his writing and his comedy, and of course he's hugely influential and incredible podcast the Adam Buxton Podcast. He's one of my heroes. I've admired him since I first saw the Adam and Joe Show back in the day. He was an absolute delight to spend time with. And
I really think you're going to love this one. So welcome back everyone. That is it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode two hundred and sixty of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to Films
to be Buried With. It is me Brett Goldstein and I am joined today by the inventor of YouTube, the inventor of radio, the inventor of TV acting, the inventor of film acting, the inventor of podcasts, and the inventor of walking with dog, and the inventor of being her husband and father and book writer and editor and songwriter and live performer and hero and legend. He's alive. He's here. We can't believe it, can you? I can't, But he is. Check it out. It's really him. Welcome to the show.
It's the brilliant Adam Baxton.
Thanks very much. Ah, what a trait to have you, Adam. How's it going. It's good man. I mean, you're right, I did invent all those things you did.
I was thinking it tell me.
But you know the problem with being the inventor of things is that because you're right at the front, part of being an inventor is getting everything wrong. And then everyone who comes after you improves on all those things and does them properly agreed to. But still nice to have invented so many things, yeah, I mean you sort of.
Did though, right, I mean you know that, you know that. I'm sure you go to better again. And I started all this, but as inconsistently you invented YouTube, then you invented radios, then you invented double X, and then you invented podcasts.
The one thing that I genuinely feel that me and Joe Cornish got to a little bit before other people was doing parodies of TV shows and films with toys. And I'm not claiming that we were the first people ever in history to have done that. That would be incredibly stupid and hubristic, but I feel like we were certainly some of the first people to do it in that silly, snarky adult way, for better or worse. And I think
we predated robot Chicken by yes, a little bit. But then robot Chicken came out was so brilliantly technically and comedically realized that we were instantly overshadowed, and people assumed I think that we kind of ripped them off, which was not the case.
No, you would have angered. And also I feel like you also invented like filming in shops, like doing stuff with real people in shops.
No, I believe candid Camera did.
No, we did, no, Thank you agreed to disagree. Oh, also, do you know what else you invented? I was thinking about this. I hope this doesn't make you said, but I think that you also invented talking about grief openly, and like everyone who follows your podcast, which I think
is everyone who has podcasts. You know, when your father died, it was such a big part of it, and then with your mother as well, like it, like following your you very openly talking about your mental health and about your grief, and the complicated way you talk about your dad is really you were the first person to do that. You're probably the reason everyone's banging on about everything now.
I triggered the over sharing friends, so your fault. I inadvertently made people's problems worse by having that focus far too much on the things that in my father's time people just got on with and tough dout.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I definitely didn't invent that, but it certainly felt as if one of the nice things about podcasts was the time to talk about those things without it being excruciating. I mean, maybe it's I always worry that I talk about those things too much. Still, I am genuinely conflicted about sharing and ruminating in that way too much.
I think you've got to find a balance. But on the other hand, It's so nice to be able to have long form, friendly conversations with people in a way that you never really could on TV or on radio. I don't think where there's such a pressure to keep things moving and no dead air please, no awkward pauses, and so anyway, it's nice to be able to do that.
I'm worried that. I mean, one of the reasons I keep this podcast going is I'm like, I don't think we have these conversations anywhere else, you know what I mean, As in, when do you sit for an hour an hour and a half with someone face to face another conversation in life? I don't.
It's true, you.
Know what I mean. We've had to invent podcasts to have proper conversations.
Yeah.
Do you ever put stuff like particularly when you're like having your walks and you're, you know, clearly thinking through something and talking about it out there? Do you listen back to it or do you just send it off? Like? Do you ever regret it? Do you ever go a fuck? I feel shamed that I said all this stuff and put it out in the world. Or are you like always at peace with that's done and this out? Oh?
Man, I'm never at peace. I'm always feeling as though I'm cringing constantly at the person I have been and the person I am. It's a you know, it's a process of evolution, isn't It's never ending. You're just constantly kind of revising and updating and hoping that you're gradually learning lessons. But yeah, I cringe the entire time. I feel because people say in the creative industries right like, you're supposed to go with your instinct. People are always
telling you just go with your instinct. I'm pretty sure my instincts are shit on loads of things. And sometimes when I make a conscious decision like what does your heart tell you, buckles, what are you instinctively feeling about this decision? And I'll go, I'll go with that, I'll be true to myself. And then afterwards I'm like, oh, yeah, I hate myself. I should never have done with that.
I mean, that is a clue to a whole other raft of issues with my own self esteem and my own relationship with myself and the degree to which I struggle with a certain amount of self loathing. But you know, it's a constant balancing act between the bits I like about myself and wanting to listen to those and the bits I really don't like about myself and trying to tell the difference between the two. Okay, that's a long I do know any answer to your question.
I do know what you mean, particularly in terms of self esteem and stuff. And I was thinking this the other day. You tell me from your side, if you're someone with like self esteem and self likely, right, but you are objectively if you take your emotions out of it, objectively, you're very successful, and you're kind of beloved. And there are certainly large, large numbers of people who you can
find evidence of. You can find, you know, essays written about you, like people love you, right, But has that had any effect on your self esteem or self likely or do you just go these people are mad and wrong.
Funnily, if I don't think they're mad and wrong, and it really does cheer me up. And every now and again I'll see people in real life who come up and say very sweetly and sincerely to me that they
enjoy the podcast. And part of me is always you know, there's always that small voice in your head that's saying yeah, But that's because I edit to the podcast heavily and present the version of myself that I want to present, and that's part of the exercise of the podcast on some level, a colossal, vain effort to kind of manage the way I come across. But that's only part of it.
I do think that there's a lot of my genuine self in there as well, and it is really encouraging when people connect with that and enjoy that, and it has cheered me up certainly. On occasions when I'm really staring into the abyss, I am able to sometimes rationalize and say, look, you're not such a brilliant, you know, manipulator that you've managed to fool all these people. There is something worthwhile about it.
There's too many hours of your stuff, like if you if it was all so curated, you'd have given it away at some point, you know what I mean.
That have been cracks, Yeah, I mean, but but you're always thinking. In dark moments, you do tend to think like, you know, you think about the people that don't like what you do so much, yes, and those are the you find yourself agreeing with.
Them completely completely.
You know what I mean. You think, oh, yeah, they've they've got the measure of me.
You know, you do you do stand up? A stand up? The one guy in the fourth row with his arms folded looks miserable. Everyone else is laughing, and you think he knows Yeah, exactly, he knows the truth.
Yeah. But it's weird, isn't it, Because they're because they're not even though you have that, you afford them that level of respect in a way.
Yeah.
But at the same time, I don't like those people. I don't like people who dislike me. I don't want to hang out with them. I much prefer people who do like me. So I have to remind myself of that as well, you know, I have to remind myself, like, you know, those people that you pay attention to who criticize you, are they really the kind of people that you want to impress? And most of the time they're not. Really. They're people that I don't really, I wouldn't really get
on with. We just see the world differently, and that's why they don't like what I do. So I have to kind of make peace with that.
Well, let me cheer you up with some news that I forgot to tell you at the beginning.
Oh yeah, what's happened?
You're dead?
I'm playing I'm playing along with your acting rooms. This is the part of the podcast I enjoy when you and your guests start acting.
Will make it longer? Make it longer? Ah, yes, because you're an actor.
Oh god, what's that? What's up?
Hey?
What's up? Man?
Oh shit?
Did you've suddenly gone off? Freddy?
Did your agent tell you anything specific about this podcast or just what? Did you own? Just said the time and day?
Yeah? Yeah?
Why?
What's going on?
Ah? Man?
What?
Ah? I don't know you well enough to just sort of say this. Do you know what I mean? I don't want you to feel like this was like a prank or I set this up. But I have some news and what's happening? Man, I don't tell me. I don't know how did a dog? Oh god? You have a dog as well? What?
And a wife and got some kids? I think you can be straight with me. Do you think okay before I tell you? Do you think that they would miss you if you weren't around. I guess this will help me with this next. Not the dog. No, I don't think the dog would notice. I think the dog would be fine, But the wife and kids. You think it's going to be an issue for if you weren't around. Just I'm not saying what a couple of the kids, one of them will be fine.
Okay, Well, so it's sort of fifty to fifty on the wife, kids and dog. Well, the thing is, you're you've died. You're dead.
Oh no, man, I knew it was going to happen at some point.
Oh man, I'm so sorry. How did you die?
Well? I died in o bleak future. Where have you seen? This occurred to me the other day. Actually went a while back during the pandemic and we went to see a film. Maybe I won't say the name of the film because I don't want to be down on it. I know it's a film that a lot of people enjoyed, but I didn't enjoy it. And when we came out of the multiplex, it was the first time we'd been to the cinema in about, you know, a year and
a half or something. It felt like it was a long time, and it was quite a dispiriting journey to the cinema in all sorts of ways, because everything was only just beginning to open up. It was pretty bleak. We went to one of the malls in Norwich and half the shops were shuttered out of business and it looked kind of like a scene from one of the zombie movies, one of the Day of the Dead movies,
you know. And the only shops that were still open were things like selling phone cases and sweet shops and mobility scooter shops and vape shops. And it was like, Wow, I'm getting strong apocalypse vibes from this from this mall, Like, this is when it comes down to it, this is what modern humanity feels is most necessary in a pandemic is mobility scooters, sweet shops, fate fight shops, and phone case shops. Yeah, And then we went to see this film. In the film, I didn't like that.
Was there a paintball? Was there a paintball table, table selling painte There.
Have been paintball that would have been that would have cheered me up, But no, there was no paintball. There was an arcade as well. The arcade was doing great business. I was like, how's that good? In the pandemic? Just all the buttons and knobs covered in COVID anyway, But it occurred to me as we were coming out of the movie that maybe one day they'll just have walk in euthanasia centers as well, a bit like the film Soilent Green.
Yes, okay, it's a lovely idea.
And I thought you could have two exits from the cinema. You could have one exit back into the mare, and the other exit was just go straight to the euthanasia center, and then you can in Soilent Green. Edward g. Robinson lies in the you know the film soil and Green, Right, Yes, have you seen it?
I actually haven't seen it, but I know what Soilent Green.
Is, right, Okay, Yeah, So it's a film. It's an amazing film and incredibly prescient in all sorts of ways. And it's about a future that's horribly overpopulated and there's climate catastrophe and food shortages and all sorts of stuff
that we're frightened about in our modern time. And there are regular riots over food shortages in these overcrowded cities, and the government sends out these kind of you know, diggers with big scoops on them, and they just shovel up all the rioters and dump them in the back. It's incredibly bleak and dystopian, but brilliant. But the scene that really made such an impression on me when I saw it as a youngster, was this scene where this old guy has finally had enough of living in this
horrible nightmare society and in this overcrowded world. In Soilent Green, you have the option as a citizen to go and just euthanize yourself. And you can go into a walk in center and it's the only place in this horrible city where there's space and where people treat you properly as a person, so they welcome you. It's like going
to a fancy hotel. Everyone's nice to you, and they lead you to a lovely, comfortable room and you lie down on the bed and it's a bit like an imax, a private imax, and they project all these beautiful images of what the world used to be like before it got totally fucked, and it's all beautiful shots of nature and streams and animals, gambling and beautiful fields. And then gradually you slip under because they administer the lethal injection.
So I was thinking, yeah, that's probably what males will be like in Norwich, and I'd say years you'll have the option to just go to the euthanasia clinic, and depending on what film you've seen. They'll project in amongst all the images of how beautiful the world was, they'll probably be outtakes from the film that you just saw, bits from yeah, bloopers just to cheer you up as you're slipping under, and also extra bits with you know, Taigawai t t doing wise Cracks with Ryan Reynolds, And
that's how I died. I was in one of those euthanasia centers.
I mean, I think if they did do that in the middle you're describing where they're selling a phone cases and vapes, I think i'd go straight.
There, Yeah, because they probably have like as you're going in, they'd probably they'd have vapes and stuff like that there as well, and they'd have like grabbers, and they probably.
Have sort of very beautiful people at the door, like welcome, come here. I mean, it's it's a pretty good idea. How old would you like to be when you choose to go in this euthanasia Benny, It's.
Going to be fairly soon, okay, because I don't want to get too old now, because from what I've seen of old age so far, I'm not not massively in favor. No, I mean I say that I'm being glib. Part of the process of becoming Buckle's two point not and trying to upgrade is coming to terms with growing older and with old age. And actually, I really don't want to face it in the same way that my mom did.
She never really made peace with getting old, and it always made me sad to see her sad about being old. You know, she was very upbeaten lots in most ways, but every now and again she'd just look in the mirror and she'd kind of I could see the shadow coming over her. She hated it. She's like, I hate being old. I hate being old. Obviously I get it. I don't want to be like that myself. I'm really hopeful that I can realign.
What's the answer, like in an ideal because I think about this a lot. In an ideal world, if you are your very very best self, what are you meant to be thinking? Then when you are old, when you are objectively out, are you meant to be thinking? This is great? I'm so old, I can't move and I'm in pain all the time. What are you like? What's the what's the sort of acceptance happy version of that? Do you know what I mean?
I guess you're just in a state where you're appreciating, you're grateful for all the things that are still available to you, even if they are very much more limited than they used to be. That's the thing, is like your your choices are compromised as you get older, and it's a process of coming to terms with that and being grateful for the things that you still have. But I am encouraged by things like the film that Julian Temple made about will Co Johnson being diagnosed with cancer.
A few years back. Will Co Johnson, who was a guitar player in the band Doctor Feel Good and he ha certain point, was diagnosed with cancer and it was a pretty bad diagnosis, like they only gave him a few months or something, and his friend Julian Temple, the filmmaker,
did this documentary about him. It's called The Ecstasy of Wilco Johnson, and he was just suddenly after the initial shock of the diagnosis, he was just transformed into someone who is ecstatic about the time that he had left and how he was suddenly able to appreciate in kind of minute and very intense detail, everything that he could still appreciate about life, and what an amazing world. It was in lots of ways as well as being a
difficult place. And I've heard that from a few people who get terminal diagnoses, not saying obviously everyone responds the same way, but some people do. They suddenly, suddenly there's a kind of relief at being set free from the constant worry about your own mortality and how it's going to play out, what the end will be like, like how much time do you have left? What's going to happen? And how are you going to buy the farm? All
that kind of stuff. Suddenly it's gone, and all you have to do now is make the most of the time you have left. And of course that's what we should all be doing all the time, and we all know carpe d and blah blah blah. But actually real life gets in the way, doesn't it.
I've had this conversation a few times. But you tell me, I would love to know the day I'm going to die? Would you? If I could tell you you've got this loan.
Well that's a bit like have you gone and got a DNA test?
No, will that tell me when I'm going to die?
Well, it'll give you. It might give you a fair indication. Oh god, it depends on the kind of DNA test you get. If you just get a test about like, oh, my family, part of my family came from the Netherlands or something, then that's a different one. But I think you can get pretty accurate tests about like what kind of medical conditions are you prone to? What is it likely that is going to happen to you? In that way. Obviously, it's still totally random, because you know, there's accidents and
all sorts of other things that might happen. Nothing is set in stone. And even if you are genetically predisposed to certain conditions, those are just switches that might be flipped. They won't necessarily be flipped, you know what I mean.
Yeah, I don't want that in my head. I don't want you maybe have this disease coming. Yeah, I'm like to tell me the day, this day, you're going to get hit by a burst this day. I don't even have to tell me how I die, just to tell me because exactly the thing you're talking about. I've thought about this a lot. If you tell me I've got fifty years to live, I will carry on much as I am now. If you tell me, I will be
dead in two years. I'll probably change if you you know what I mean Like, I'll probably be like, well I don't with that fucking thing, and you get me like, yeah, it would change, I do.
But then wouldn't you be from a practical point of view if that was me though, I'd then be thinking, yeah, but how am I gonna die?
Then?
In two years? Is it going to be a slow builder? But my starting and to start going down a hill nine months beforehand? Is it going to be sudden? You know?
Well, that's the fun bit. You don't know that in this game.
You just know the day we already have the fun bit in that case, we already have. The fun bit is not knowing and living as well as you can. In case, that's the theory, isn't it.
How often do you worry about death?
Well, in one way or another, quite a bit, I suppose always or more recently, oh no, always been quite a warrior, okay, and grew up in the eighties, you know, was ten years old in nineteen eighty and lived through years of really acute anxiety about nuclear war, which a lot of people of my age can relate to, I think, and a lot of films that came out around that time. The day after and Threads the day after was the one nineteen eighty three, which they showed on ITV like
three weeks before Christmas. It was I've looked up the director and he turns out to be someone who he directed Star Trek four, The Voyage Home. Oh wow, so he didn't just do he didn't just do super bleak nuclear war stuff.
You know, the guy who made Threads made La story to Steve Motosil Really, yeah, what I like? What a career? Wow?
That's crazy. Yeah, but yeah, the day after absolutely scared the shit out of me and made me think a lot about nuclear war.
What do you think happens that after you day?
I mean, I haven't had any proof that anything happens. I'm always looking for it. I'm very much open to all sorts of possibilities. I'd really like to see some ghosts. I haven't seen any yet. My wife reckons she's seen ghosts. I'm pretty sure she was drunk. And everyone I know, all the friends that I have who swear that they've seen ghosts, I don't really trust them in that respect. I'm afraid.
Can you tell me one of your wife's ghost stories.
They're kind of secondhandy. There was one about now can I tell you? It's all stuff like, oh, I saw an old guy in a coach. Now that you've pinned me down, I can't even tell you what they were. I think she maybe she maybe she just believes in a general way. In ghosts, it's usually things like the ghost stories that I've heard from people that I'm close with are things like they're pretty crap.
You know.
It's either someone standing at the end of the bed where you just think you were asleep, you obviously asleep, or you were half awake and did you know that when you were in that state, it's very easy to see all sorts of things that can be easily explained by being half asleep. So it's usually things like that. There was one story a friend of mine told me. He swears that the pedal bin or is it a pedal bin, Well, it's no, it's a bin with you know, a sort of swiping, rotating flippy thing.
Yeah, and he.
Reckons the rotating flippy hatch was just spinning round and round and round and wouldn't stop. And there was no wind, the doors were closed, nothing like that, and it was just around and round and round. But even that, you know, even that, I just think, no, it wasn't.
Well, you don't believe there was a ghost in the bin, just flipping the flipping bit.
There might have been a big rat. Well, I got news for you, buddy boy. There's a heaven, a real one, and you are welcome there. They're huge fans. They welcome you in with open arms. And this filled with your favorite thing. What's your favorite thing?
Music? It's filled with music. Everywhere you go music.
I mean it would be, wouldn't it.
It really loves it. It's mostly gospel, and it's great. And everyone's there that you love, and they're all excited to see you. There's Bowie, he's excited to see you. He's like, I've heard you all your stuff, and you're like, get the fuck out of here, me too. And then everyone wants to talk to you, but they won't talk to you about your life through film. The first thing they ask you, what's the first film you remember seeing? Adam Baxton first film. I was really trying to think
hard about this. It would have been something, it would have been a sort of Disney thing. We were heavily on board with the Disney program in the seventies when I was growing up. I was born in nineteen sixty nine, so some of the first things I remember seeing maybe on TV, things like The Jungle Book and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, things like that. But then I think we started going to the movies, and it would always be my mum that took us because she was
a film fan as well. Towards the end of the seventies, and seventy seven was the big year that I have proper memories of for the first time, so I would have been eight, well seven eight. We went to see Pete's Dragon, I remember, and I thought Pete's Dragon was pretty good because I hadn't seen I don't think i'd seen cartoons and live action blended in that way before,
so I was well impressed. Pete Dragon is the film Me and my sister Every weekend we're allowed to get a video out of the video shop, and I think for about two years, every weekend we just got out Pete Draggon.
Wow, love Pete Draggon. Was it good because I don't think I've ever seen it again.
Oh, it's wonderful. I mean it's weird.
Pet Dragon is a very badly nice the dragon.
Lovely Dragon, very sweet, he's a nice dragon. And he also goes invisible and.
Not like far right, No, he turns out he's really heavily racist far right dragon.
I think he's quite liberal. He's quite out of mind. There's a Hillbillies. They're the bad guys, Barbara, Yes, okay, very good. Lovely songs critically reviled incorrectly.
Yeah, I mean, it probably doesn't stand up if we were to watch it now. But then there was The Rescuers that year as well, lovely, which I liked quite a lot, with a plucky female heroine. I believe I'm right in saying unusual for the time, lady, ma'am. And then, of course, I don't know if you've heard of Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, it's like a farm boy. He makes friends with a bin. They go on adventures flippy bin. Okay, yeah that's good. Yeah, the bin can talk. And it was good, I thought.
And we went to see that, and that was I suppose one of the more one of the more like maybe the first sort of grown up ish film that I had seen. And a very memorable trip to the movies, you know, and then getting out. I remember getting out into the foyer and they didn't have any merch at that point. I think it was still early days for
Star Wars. So we saw it January seventy eight, I think we were living in Wales at the time, and my mom drove us down to London and we went to see Star Wars in Leicester Square and it was incredibly exciting and yeah that I don't think they had the toys at that point. They hadn't started doing all the merchandising properly. The only thing you could buy was a soundtrack, and so I begged my mum to buy
the soundtrack, not really understanding what a soundtrack was. I thought a soundtrack would be all the sounds of the film, just the talking and the whole film. Yeh, yeah, the audio of the film I'm looking at exactly, because that's the bit I wanted. I was like, I just wanted any way to retain moments of the of the film and the characters, and basically what I wanted was a video of it, but obviously there was no such thing
in them days. So we got the soundtrack and it was incredibly disappointing to find out that it was just the music, even though obviously the music's good, but that's not what I wanted at that point. I wanted the talking.
Forgive me. If you've ever talked about this, and I haven't heard you talk about this or written about this. You did loads of really good Star Wars sketches do we call them short films with toys and what not over the years. Have you ever met George Lucas? Has he ever seen these? Have you had any feedback from George Lucas?
I don't know. I definitely haven't. I don't know if Joe's met George Lucas in his film Travels. It's possible. I mean, he's met Spielberg, hasn't he So yeah, yeah, I can't remember if he's met George Lucas or not. But Joan never tells people in the film world what he used to do. I think he's a bit ashamed of it. I think he feels like he has to keep that secret. They find out that he used to take the piss out of Hollywood with Star Wars toys, then he'll be thrown out of the film club.
Yeah, how it works? Yeah, okay, amazing. So when you saw Star Wars and all these things. Did you think I just love this? As in, did you think I want to be in this, I want to be part of this, or I just love this.
The idea that you could be in it wasn't anywhere near my head in nineteen seventy eight, as a eight year old film was totally magical. There was total total separation between the entertainment world and real life, no crossover whatsoever, which is why things like It'll Be all Right on the Night, which was a TV show that showed kind of bloopers mainly from TV but occasionally, thrillingly, they would show bloopers from feature films that they somehow got hold of.
And I was addicted to that show. And it was a special occasion show, you know what I mean. It was like they would have it at Christmas time or on public holidays, you get another dose of It'll be all Right on the Night. And it felt so magical and thrilling to get a glimpse of behind the scenes glimpse of these films being made, you know, and any time that because they didn't really have behind the scenes
stuff that much. It started to happen in the eighties there was a behind the scenes thing that they showed on TV about Indiana Jones, about Regis the Lost Arc, and that was incredibly exciting. But yeah, you know, there was no way that you could be a part of that world. It was totally separate. You'd never see any of those people. You'd never meet anyone who was involved. I didn't know anyone who was in the film industry, and certainly my parents didn't.
What did you want to be in when you were like a teenager?
I mean on this answer, is a space bank like an astronaut, right? Or sweet shop owner?
They were?
They were my two favorite things, space and sweets. I was like, well, ideally it would be great to go to space. Probably that isn't going to happen more realistically. Maybe I could get some kind of corner shop and then I would have access to the sweets at any time.
What about the you know those ice cream space ice creams you get? Was that the perfect crossover of the lollies shaped like rockets? You mean, I don't but them too, but you know that you could buy like dry ice cream, which is what astronauts eat.
Oh my god, that would have been amazing. I never had any of those. Well, you've got that to look forward to. What is the film that scared you the most? Do you like being scared? I like being fun scared, right, but I don't like being, you know, really scared, Like the Horrible Fear films were things like The Day After. Yeah, that's what really genuinely scared me the most. And the other night I was watching TV and flipping around and my wife went up to bed, and then I came
across Chernobyl the Lost Tapes. Oh, that's the documentary, the documentary that the TV series was based on. Basically, they just I didn't realize that they'd lifted wholesale whole sections of the documentary and dramatized them essentially. And I came across the bit where I'm laughing but it's it's bleak laughter, the bit with the fire fighters in the hospital before they realized that they're totally ravaged by radiation and they haven't started getting ill. Oh my god, it was it
was just it's beyond horror. It's beyond That's the thing is like, real life offers up things that are so much more vividly horrific than anything you could imagine, And in my mind it sometimes makes horror a little bit redundant in that way, you know what I mean. Also with true crime, I'm quite literal minded. So even on a show like poker Face, which I love Natasha Leone, which she's great, but it's a true crime thing, right, so it starts with a murder every week and then
she sort of solves the murder. Even that you know, it's mainly played for laughs. It's quite light, but I just go, oh, no, that's so sad that person was murdered. And I'm not suggesting that I'm so sensitive and everyone who loves true crime they're not sensitive like I am. I think that most people are just able to distinguish between and to compartmentalize, right, disengage certain sensitivities when they're watching movies. But I've never really been able to do that,
so I don't like that. But fun Fear Alien is the big thing. That was the one that I had to wait a long time before I saw as a youngster, but ever since it came out, I remember not being able to sleep and going and finding my mum and she was watching film eighty I think, I mean, I can't remember if the film came out in seventy nine or eighty, I'm not sure, but anyway, she was watching Barry Norman's film review program and he was the best ever movie the film movie reviewer on TV. I think
I saw a clip of him the other day. He's like, wow, he was great.
Normal.
Anyway, he was reviewing Alien and they showed a clip and I was just completely mesmerized because it seemed and indeed it turned out when I finally saw the film, like four or five years later, when I was finally old enough, it seemed real. Everything about it seemed real, and it still seems real now. I saw it the other night. I was flipping around and it came on, and it's so well directed, and the actors are so good. The rhythm of it, it feels very naturalistic and documentary style.
It's brilliant.
And the.
Soundscape, what do you call it, the kind of audio work, the sound stuff, the sound stuff, it's really good. All these kind of slightly musical noises and bubles, and it's half like synthesizer stuff, half kind of machine hums, all very sinister. It's constantly bubbling away, and all these things creates such an amazing atmosphere. Plus of course the central premise, which is a creature busting out of your stomach. So
that's so horrific. That kind of body horror really frightens me in the same way that that Chernobyl footage, you know, looking at stuff like that, it's very upsetting. Real illness and body stuff gets to me. All that kind of David Crone type stuff I find very very unsettling. But Alien got the balance right, like it was dealable with, but still very very shocking and frightening.
Alien's got that thing I keep talking about. So I'm obsessed with because I think we don't have it enough in like Hollywood films, And maybe it was just it was a lot of films in this seventies, it seems, but like Spielberg used to do it and Scorsese did it. This thing you're talking about of atmosphere, it's partly the sound stuff, but it's also like maybe it's a bit improvised in the dialogue, like it just feels like people talking,
You're not catching everything everyone's saying. They feel like a real crew who've been hanging out too long. It doesn't feel polished. It's a bit dirty, spagging gray good choice, Yeah, Truckers in Space, Truckers in Space. What is the film that made you cry the most? Are you a crier? You're a crier?
Oh man, Yeah, I am a crier. And it's getting worse and worse, and I'm very easily triggered. The other day. It's not the film that makes me cry the most, but the other day again, it was one of those things. It's a modern phenomenon. I think of the of the kind of multi channel age when you're flicking around and you're not kind of prepared for certain things, and suddenly you come across films either that have a strong emotional resonance for you or things that you just weren't ready for.
Suddenly you're confronted with these moments. And we came across parenthood. The Ron Howard loved me, and I suddenly realized, like, oh shit. I think most of my ideas about what it would be like to be a parent were formed by parenthood. So when did that come out? Like end of the eighties and I was a Yeah, I was a teenager in late teens, nearly twenty I saw parenthood. I was many years away from becoming a father myself.
But it really resonated with me, and I think it was one of the first times when I understood a little bit about what it must have been like for my parents having children. And I do think there's lots of quite good stuff in there that is still relatable. But the bit that we came across when we were flicking around we found Parenthood was the bit where Joaquin Phoenix, who was at the time like beautiful and young, twelve years old or thirteen or something like that. He's got
lovely floppy hair. Anyway, he is the He's playing the son of Diane Weist, and she is divorced in the film from her husband, and the husband doesn't really he's moved on. He's got a new family. He doesn't really want to have anything to do with his old family. But the son played by Joaquin is having a bad time at home. He wants to reconnect with his dad
and spend some time with his dad. He's fed up with being with Diane West so he gets on the phone to his dad and his mum is sort of over in the corner watching him and saying, I don't think you should phone your dad. He's like, I am going to phone my dad. I want to see my dad. So he phones up and his dad's just totally not interested. He's busy, He's like, how do you get this number? He's just totally cold with his son. And it was
I just came apart. I just it was like someone had just turned on a tap and I just started crying. I don't know why my parents didn't get divorced in that way. I mean they separated, who knows. I found it hard to understand where my response was coming from. But it was so heartbreaking this scene.
Was it was it like a fear of your children feeling like that. If you didn't have that.
I don't think so. I mean it was it was really mysterious. I think it's just it was a brilliant performance by Joaquin. It's so sad what this guy on the phone to his dad and his dad doesn't want to know. Oh my god, sorry, I'm going. I'm going again. So that really made me cry. But other films that always set me off are Remains of the Day. Oh yeah, because that's dad's stuff, right, So anything with Dad's watch out forget it that just reaches right in and tears
your soul out. And oh enough said, have you ever seen that Nicole hillof Senna's film Oh Yeah, with Julia Louis Dreyfus and James Gandelfini. Yes, from twenty thirteen. It was like his last film, No, no, yeah, one of them surely yeah, Julia Louis Dreyfus. She's a single I'm reading from the synopsis. Single mother Eva enjoys her professionalism massuse, but is worried as her daughter is about to begin college. She meets Albert played by James Gandolfini and discovers that
he's her new friend's ex husband. Anyway, she forms this friendship with James Gandolfini's character and they get really close, and then they fall out over something. He feels that he hasn't been honest with her and he doesn't want to see her anymore. And she goes around and tries to apologize and say, listen, this is silly. You know, we got on so well. I'm really sorry, and he just won't. He won't take the he won't take her apology.
I mean you can hear. I am just a total disaster area as soon as I come in any kind of proximity with these themes and these moments in these films, it's like I'm being electrocuted or something and I cannot I can't keep I can't keep it together. And Julia Louis Drivers in this film is amazing. She's so good. There's one bit where she's so sad that James Gandelpini doesn't want to be friends with her. She can't believe it. She's heartbroken and and I come apart every time.
Is it the is it the friendship of it, or is it the fact that he's not she's not forgiven?
Well, yeah, it's all those things. It's just it's just very deep, kind of elemental stuff, things that are painful, really painful and sad, you know, and and when you see them so well evoked. I think also there's a kind of sentimental part of me that gets very emotional when you see anything good, you know what I mean, Like we see something that's done so well, when someone's you see a great performance and someone captures something very true, it's really moving.
Have you seen the band?
I'm laughing. I'm laughing because me and my wife had such a massive row about it. I picked it as our Christmas Day movie with the whole family, thinking that it was going to be a hoot because I really liked in Bruges. I thought, they've got the gang back together again. It's going to be great times like in Bruges. And we watched it. My brother and sister were over and we watched it with the kids, like I've got
teenage children. My daughter probably too young really to have seen it at fourteen, although she took herself off to bed fairly quickly, but the rest of us watched the whole thing and oh my god, it was such a bummer.
It's such as such a massive bummer.
And then my wife at the end of it, because she was she wanted to watch Top Gun Maverick again. We've seen Top Gun. Maras we seen Top Gun Maverick. She's like, it's so good. I was like, I know, I loved it too. It was great, So let's watch that. That's what Christmas is about. Christmas is about Top Gun Maverick, not fucking branches of in a sherry. I was like, come on, in Bruges, they've got the gang back together again. It'll be fun. We don't want to watch Top Gun Maverick.
We only to see top We saw it two months ago, so we struggled through branches of inn sharing, and my wife, just when it was finished, she just sighed this kind of deep disappointed, existential sigh and said, I'm going to go to bed now. And then my brother and sister very slowly got up off the sofa and sighed as well, and they said, yeah, I think we'll think I'll go too.
May Christmas everyone, maybe.
Yes, thanks for that. I see tomorrow we probably have to get the train fairly early tomorrow.
So anyway, were you were you sweating all the way through it as you realized this isn't the fun I promised everyone.
First twenty minutes, I was thinking, smack, it's a smash, look at it. And my wife was even saying, oh my god, it's so beautiful. Look at it. Wow, it's incredible. I was thinking, yep, you bet Buckles has picked a winner. It's an absolute peach, and it's got a bit of substance to it, you know, top gun Maverick, that's all fine, you can only have so much escapism. We're going to wrestle with some real themes here in the beautiful Irish countryside.
But then then when fingers started being chopped off, it was like Oh fuck.
What is the film that is not critically acclaimed? People don't like it, but you love it unconditionally.
Cocktail Wow. Cocktail is not a film that I would ever recommend to someone as a great piece of cinema. But I do love it, and I have seen it quite a few times. And I didn't see it all that long ago again for about the sixth seventh time, maybe I went to see it in nineteen eighty eight when it came out because I was a cocktail bartender at the time at a place called the Chicago Pizza Pie Factory in Hanover Square in London, and it was
the first time. I started out as a busboy there clearing plates and doing all that, and I graduated to cocktail bartender and they took us. The bar manager took us to see Cocktail when it came out because he said, we've got to raise our game because TGI Fridays was a big thing in the West End restaurant cocktail world because they did all the flare, they did all the stuff that they do in cocktail, throwing stuff around, spinning bottles and all that kind of stuff, and we didn't
really do that at our restaurant. But the bar manager said, we've got to start doing that. That's what people want, got to start chucking glasses around. So off we went to see cocktail to pick up some tips and aside from the glamorization of heavy drinking and the world of cocktail bartending, both of which I was quite heavily invested in and a fan of. You know, Tom Cruise is pretty good. Say what you like about that guy, but he is not short of raw charisma, true, and he's
fucking good. And also Elizabeth Shoes, she's no slouch either. She's fantastic. And then Brian Brown also very good, underrated actor and his character is very funny. Brian Coglan Cogland's law. I found on the Internet the other day a list of all the Cogland's laws from Cocktail, Drink or be Gone Drink or be Gone Cogland's law. Never show surprise, never lose your cool. Never tell tales about a woman. No matter how far away she is, she'll hear you.
Cogland's law. Anyway, I love cocktail. And also you've got lots of beautiful locations. He goes off and he's a bartender in Jamaica or Barbados or somewhere for a while, and it's all very stupid and aspirational and goofy, But I like that.
Did you do poetry and get really good at flipping stuff at Chicago Pizza Bay Town? No?
And no, okay. One of my first efforts to do some flare and flip some bottles ended up with me smashing a large plate glass mirror behind. So that was a sad time. And then soon after that, I slipped and brought down a giant stack of glasses, like a tower of highball glasses. They all smashed and then I landed on top of them. Palms out. Ah, I landed on this big, jagged glass pile. I still I still have a scar across my left hand from the giant wounding up from that. So no, I was pretty cack handed.
How many ists did you get? Must have been a lot.
I mean.
The thing is that I was fairly anaesthetized with alcohol at the time. It was a busy Friday night shift and we would occasionally drink booze while we were at work. This was at a different restaurant by that time, so it didn't hurt that badly. And then I went to the A and E during the shift and they stitched me up and then I went to meet everyone after the shift in the bar in Soho are like, hey, hey, I got loads of stitches. Amazing, let's get some shots.
What is the film that you used to love but you've watched it recently and you've thought I don't like this anymore? Well, probably The Breakfast Club, great answer. So that came out in nineteen eighty five and I saw it on my birthday, and actually, you know what is this is also the answer to another question that you had in your list, which is what's the film that had the most meaning to you because of where you were at and where you saw it. So this is
the answer to both of those questions. Well, let's hear you're doc.
Yeah. I saw it on my sixteenth birthday, seventh, nineteen eighty five, that's when it was released in the UK, and it really spoke to me very directly about the intolerable pressure that I felt being exerted on me by the adult world, and the extent to which adults didn't understand what it was like to be a young person because their hearts had died, you know, but when you grow up your heart dies, and I felt like, yeah, that is fucking true.
That is so true.
When you grow up, your heart dies. And the only people who still understand what it is like to feel are young people, and no one really understands what it is like to be young except John Hughes and the cast of The Breakfast Club. And it was just like
NonStop emotion. It's just this emotional rollercoaster laughs, incredible laughs, ha hahaha, and real sadness at some of the struggles that the characters were going through their difficult home lives and not being able to measure up to their parents' expectations and things like that, and not doing well in exams. Yes, I can relate to all this stuff. And then also loved Ali Sheedy. She played a kind of gothy nerd girl who I very much fancied and just thought, I
love you, gothy nerd girl. And at the end when John Bender played by Judd Nelson, he's the kind of yob bully character in the film, who it turns out is only a yob bully because of his horrible, abusive home life, so he's not that bad, actually, it turns out, and he ends up being the kind of emotional center of the film. Anyway, his life is changed by this momentous time in detention with these other guys in the Breakfast Club, and they all acquire a new understanding for
each other's problems. And then when John Bender goes out after Detention is finished, and he's got his walkman on and he's listening to Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds, and he punches the air and it frees frames and it's hey, hey, hey hey. And then that
summer nineteen eighty five, I was on holiday. I went on holiday, and it was kind of the first time I went on holiday without my parents, and every time we went to a disco they were playing well it was it was I Want to Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston and Don't You Forget About Me by Simple
Minds with the two big floor fillers. So it was just kind of like year zero for my intense emotional self absorption, and it felt incredible, And I think I ended up seeing the film about four or five times. I will take everyone I knew we have you seen Breakfast Club? Oh, I'm going to take you to Breakfast Club. I think it's important for your emotional development. So we went seen that. But then about four or five years ago, again flicking around on the TV, it's The Breakfast Club.
I thought, oh yeah, give that a watch, and it was very painful.
It's unbearable. I used to love it too. They are awful, all of them.
Yeah, awful, aren't they. I mean I still got some there's still shreds of sympathy for some of them. I mean it's sort of heavy themes that it's dealing with suicidal thoughts and abuse and all sorts of things, but it's juxtaposed with this very casual, weird sort of harassment, sexism, homophobia, all this stuff kind of right up against each other, you know, which to be fair to. It is kind of what things were like in those days. And I guess a lot of those things haven't gone away completely,
though we think about them differently. And you know, even at the time, I think I thought some of those things were a bit weird, Like it was weird when Ali Sheedy's character goes off and gets a makeover and then comes back and they've turned her into a sort of conventional girly girl with a bow in her hair and makeup and stuff. And we're supposed to be delighted because look, you've turned her into just a standard girl.
But it was obvious to me, like, no, she was way better before when she had dandruff and she was all gothy. But yes, it was the thing that was most painful, I think was just the level of self obsession that was being celebrated, and I thought, oh, that makes sense that my intense kind of self absorption was being validated by this movie, not only validated, but made legendary and celebrated.
You know, were you worried that your heart had died?
Well, No, I knew that my heart hadn't died, and I was I think I felt sorry for my parents. I think I just thought, God, I got them to wrong. Obviously their hearts hadn't died. They were just I know that they were. They were just trying to do their best. And this idea of what adults were like was so off. It was way off. There was no real empathy there, and I know why there wasn't, because the point of the film was to make young people feel good about
themselves and to validate their angst as teenagers. Fair enough, but I don't know the messages I got from it were all way off, So.
Hang on, that's your answer to film used loved love anymore? And the film that means the most of you is the experience of seeing it.
Right, Yeah, because because at the time it was so incredible. At the time, it was everything to me. I loved it and I loved it. Every single time I saw it. I was like, oh, yeah, great, it's this bit. Oh brilliant is this bit? I love this bit? And I loved all the funny lines and yo, aha we have my dubage and all that brilliant love it.
What about related to what's the film you most related?
I mean probably Woody Allen films. I think the first time I saw Annie Hall in my late teens. I think it was the first time they showed it on British TV around about nineteen eighty seven, when I would have been sixteen or seventeen, and that felt very much like something I hadn't seen before, and I just thought, oh, yeah, that's I think I see the world the same way. And also the fourth wall breaking that Woody Allen does in there, and just a general sense of like what
kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be? One of those people who's got everything sussed. Do you want to be one of those kind of handsome, successful people or do you want to be one of the kind of sensitives, slightly screwed up people or not? Like, do you want to be those people? But who are you? And who's your gang? And I thought, well, if it's a choice, I'm definitely with the sensitive, screwed up people and I'm against the handsome, got it all sorted people.
And that's sort of what I took from from that film. And also just obviously I'm kind of hesitant now because because talking about Woody Allen is colored by so many other things that we think of when we think of him, and accusations and allegations and all this miserable stuff that is now inextricably linked to him. But back then, of course, there was none of that. When I was watching it for the first time.
Annie Hill is fucking amazing. Ye.
Annie Hill is a fantastic show, and she's amazing in it. She's like, it's one of those when I say, Diane Keaton, her character, that's the blueprint for so much modern comedy, you know, when you think of brilliant comedians like Julia
Davis and Kristin Wig and people like that. When you think about brilliant female comedy performers, a lot of them are drawing from that Diane Keaton energy that I'd certainly never see before seeing that film, and just the intelligence that she radiates, and the oddness and being able to zero in on very small details about the way people behave while being very lovable, you know, being someone that you could easily imagine just falling in love with and
becoming obsessed by. You know, so everything about it rang true.
Great answer, Adam Buxton, what's the sexiest film you've ever seen?
Sexy? Sexy films? Well, The Name of the Rose has this scene in it where Christian Slater playing a young oh, that one that encounters a young feral peasant girl in a in the kitchen of a monastery. And when is it set. I don't know really exactly when The Name of the Rose is set, but olden times. And it's a very very sexy scene. He gets seduced by this girl and she doesn't even speak, she doesn't even say anything.
She does is make sexy peasant feral noises and he just lies there while she takes off his habit and gives him a jolly good seeing to, and he can't He's got this look on his face like he doesn't understand what's happening and he can't really believe what's happening to him. And it's very good.
Would that be your your dream version of how you lost your.
Yeah, I'd be a monk and I get seduced by a sexy, feral peasant.
Girl who doesn't speak, who.
Crucially doesn't speak, doesn't give me a hard time. That's my ideal woman. That's a joke, by the way, Irony.
That is a really good answer that has not come up before. What's her name the lady? Because she was then in she was in the Christians Layer, the one with Travelter and Christmas later.
She's called Valentina Vargas. I'm looking her up now and the name of her character is just the girl, the.
Girl, the silent girl. Really good answer.
I mean, there was there was a few around then, you know. It was things like it was things like that and oh god, what's the French one? Betty blue blue source of stuff. Yeah, and you could smoke when I saw that as well, like smoke in the cinema and after that first sex scene, everyone in the cinema lit up a city and everyone laughed.
That's great. There's a subcategory to this question, traveling boner is worrying why dons a film you found arousing that you weren't sure you shared? Dad in Bucks?
Well, probably The Man Who Fell to Earth directed by Nick Rogue, and that features David Bowie, obviously, and it's a science fiction film about a an alien man.
Who comes to Earth and he's looking for technical solutions to the problems that have afflicted his home planet. They've run out of water, so he's got to try and find some way of getting some water and bringing it back to his planet, and.
He does that by becoming a millionaire, applying all the amazing technical know how that he has to some of the Earth's problems and building companies that will make him rich so that he can take some water back home anyway. In the meantime, there is also some quite saucy sex going on with Rip Torn who is in there playing a teacher, like a college professor, sleazy college professor who
has relationships with some of his students. And I first watched The Man Who Fell to Worth with my mum aged around eleven or twelve or something, and I was by that time. I was a big Bowie fan already, but I didn't know anything about the Manufeld to Earth. I saw it in the TV Times it said Manufeld to Earth starring David Bowie. Science fiction brilliant. I love science fiction, love Star Wars, and I was just imagining this film that was like, but you know, Zaevid riding
around with robot friends and some lasers. Slippy Bin, Yeah, flippy Bin, maybe singing with the bin and having laser fights. It's like, fucking hell, It's the perfect film. And my mom was like, oh, David Bowie. I like David Bowie. Yes, I like Space Odyssey. That's a good song. Isn't that a space oddity? Mum? She's like, yes, let's watch The Man Who Fell to Earth? So we sit there. He watched The Man Who Fell to Earth and it's fucking weird.
And there's this really long, weird sex scene with rip Torn quite near the beginning of the film, juxtaposed with shots and Xavid's character watching sort of Japanese no theater in a sushi restaurant or something with lots of shouting and animal noises in between shots of ripped torn rolling around with this much younger woman in a bed and taking photographs of each other. It was very awkward. Sat there with my mom. She's sipping her wine and none of us is, you know, not saying anything at all.
Oh my god, I want this film to be over. But I was quite turned on. And then later on in the film there's another excruciating sexy with Bowie Bowie and Candy Clark where you get to see Jayevich's toja as well. Not I don't think it's the nicest shot you could wish for of Janevich's Taja, but there was something sexy about that. Bowie's very beautiful in that film, so it was quite a It was quite a sexy roller coaster for young buckles.
How would you reshoot his taju in a way that would be more flustering? Do you think?
Hmmmm?
Is the lighting the angle? What you Yeah?
It was a low angle, blue light.
Cold in the studio.
Do you think I think he could have done with a fluffer? It was very It didn't look its best. I don't think.
Okay, Well, thank you for sharing that. That's an excellent answer. What is objectively, objectively the greatest of all time might not be your favorite, but it's the pinnacle of films.
Well, out of the films that I have seen, and I you know, I haven't seen all that many films. I've seen a lot, but my film knowledge is by no means complete, and there's so many foreign films I haven't seen, which I have to get round to. I'm fairly mainstream. But out of the films I've seen, I think the one I keep thinking, oh my god, I think that's sort of perfect is Paths of Glory. Stanley Kubrick.
Oh wow, wow. Never come up on.
This nineteen fifty seven, and everything about it is brilliant. It's short for a start, right, so it's I think it's eighty something minutes, and it's incredibly tight and smooth and relentless. But there's no fat on it whatsoever. It's like he's just trimmed everything. So it just barrels from one scene to the next without feeling rushed or anything. It's but it's just like, well, I don't need to
have any chat there, We'll just move to this next scene. Okay, So these guys are going to be so if you haven't seen the film, it's about set in the First World War in France, and it's a general who decides that he's going to tell his troops to take this important German position, but it's a total suicide mission. There's no way that they're going to It's called the Ant Hill, this position that they need to take. It's heavily fortified, and all the attempts that they've made to try and
take this position have failed. Loads of men have been killed. Anyway, he just sort of casually announces this has gone on too long. I want your guys to attack the Ant Hill and take it by tomorrow afternoon. So let's sort
this out once and for all. And so then you have Kirk Douglas's character, who is the commander of this division, and he has to carry out this order and they have a go at taking this position and they are immediately beaten back and loads of them are killed, and then the general decides that he's going to court martial loads of them for coward. There's more to it than that, but anyway, so that's the basic premise, and it ends up just being this really extraordinary illustration of the madness
of war. You probably think war's great. Yeah, it turns out it's not that good, and actually there's loads wrong with it, and actually the people in charge of war often have a fairly shaky grasp of what it entails for the people actually fighting it. All of this was news to me, but fucking hell, it's amazing. And the
performances as well, are really weirdly out of time. I think you often get that with Kubrick films, though, and it reminds you what a you know, what a very talented director can do is get these performances from talented actors. And so you've got these performances from Timothy Carey. I looked up some of the names of the actors, Timothy Carey and Wayne Morris as these characters who feel totally
real and naturalistic and completely out of time. You know, you think of the average film from nineteen fifty seven, and most of the time the acting is going to be very stiff and mannered and very not naturalistic. But
this is totally different. I mean, it's a combination. You've got some scenes and some bits of acting in parts of Glory that are more stagy and conventionally dramatic, but they're always punctuated by these strangely modern feeling moments and performances, and it builds to this incredible climax, this court martial and the result of the court martial and then a coder that's talk about moments that make you cry, Impossible to watch without just dissolving afterwards with these with all
these soldiers on a break from fighting, sat in a bar, and this German prisoner of war young woman is kind of pushed on stage and they all start kind of mocking her and jeering at her because she's a German and they're all French soldiers. And the whole atmosphere of this scene has charged with menace and threat. You know, you feel like either they're going to attack her or something bad is going to happen. And also she's so
frightened and vulnerable. And then she starts singing, and they all just go quiet and listen to her singing this sort of German folk song, and even though it's this German song that she's singing, suddenly you know they're all
connected with their humanity and fucking hell, it's amazing. And she's played the woman who sings the song by Christianne Harlan, who became Kubrick's third wife and ended up you know that that was the last time that he married, so she was married to Kubrick for the rest of his life. It's such an extraordinary film.
It's a very very good answer, mister Buxton, and there's never come up before, and I'm grateful, so big points. You get ten points for that. See, so we're done with Grey. You finally started scoring. What what what is the film you could go or have? What's the most over and over again?
Well, probably Alien it's sort of perfect, but also up there is I think with Nela and I Nice, I've seen that a lot. I think I've probably seen that once a year or so since it came out. And that holds up pretty well. I mean I showed it to my kids the other day and they were a little bit mystified. But it is very funny. It's quite specific with nell Well, it divides people. I think it
mystifies younger generations. And I I met this guy in America, an actor whose name I won't say, but successful actor, and he didn't like it at all. He was like, oh no, I didn't think that was tall funny I was like, what are you insane? That's one of the funniest films ever made. I mean, I think there's some people who love it, some people who just doesn't speak to them at all.
I don't like to be negative for too long about you, But what's the worst film you ever saw?
Well? I struggled with this. The film that popped into my head when I was trying to think of the worst film I ever saw was Long Shot with Seth Rogan and Charlie's they on I love that film. Well, people did love that film, and it got great reviews. And that's why I hesitate because I like all the people involved with it. I love Charlie's. There are like Seth Rogan, like the writers, like the director, and I saw it had great reviews and I thought, oh, brilliant,
I'll watched that. And it was when my mum was still alive, but it was towards the end of her life and she was staying with us, and it was
just one of those things. I think that a big part of people's appreciation of films is just circumstance, and you know what kind of mood you were in when you saw a film, and that's why you can recommend a film that you really love to a friend, but there's no guarantee they're going to get what you did from it, because who knows what kind of mysterious forces were at play when you saw it and when you
connected with it. So it just missed the mark. It was just the wrong film at the wrong time, watching with my family and watching with my mom and expecting a kind of funny, irreverent, romantic comedy thriller and then finding this incredibly foul mouth. It was just non stop, like I don't mind swearing, but I have to be ready for it, and it was non stop fuck shit, motherfucker, and then really gross jokes Seth Rogan wanking at one point and then chizzing in his beard, and then and
you know, my mom, my old mom sat there. Luckily she was fairly addled by that point and didn't really know what was going on, but it was very awkward. And then there's a sex scene, talking of sex scenes, sex scene with Rogan and Charlie's Thoran and she's and you know, she's playing this kind of strong, self possessed character and she's on all fours and she says, do me from behind and choke me a little, and I was like, is this what we've come to? Is this a strong woman?
I don't know.
It's an argument for another day. Is it a third wave feminism? But it was just at the end of it, it was a bit it was a bit bad. She's been a sharing So you've.
You've spent a lot of time over the years on the sofa with your mom with the traveling boner. This happened.
That's a good phrase.
Yeah, consistently throughout your life.
On the sofa with my mom, the traveling boner.
You're in comedy, You're very funny, But what is the film that made you laugh the most? Adam Buxton?
Well, God, so many, you know, with Nell and I and Spinal Tap and Bride'smaids. That scene on the plane I'm always talking about with Kristin Wig when she's hammered. I think that's maybe one of the funniest comedy performances ever. But overall, with everything that it means to me and how well it stands up, I think Galaxy Quest right film, because we watched that the other day and we got some members of my extended family together and everyone was
kind of bummed. Out when we saw it. We wanted to show them something that would cheer them up a little bit, and I said, I think Galaxy Quest might
do the job. And I hadn't seen it for a bit saw it when it came out in two thousand and For anyone who hasn't seen Galaxy Quest, it's kind of a Star Trek spoof about the cast of a Star Trek type TV show who are on the convention circuit and then they run into some real aliens who think that they are a real heroic crew of a real spaceship, and the aliens asked them to come to space and help them out with a problem they're having, and it's just so funny. And who's oh, it's Tim.
Tim Allen is the Kirk character, and then you've got Sigourney Weaver who is the sidekick. And there's lots of quite good jokes about you know, gender stereotypes and racial stereotypes. But for nineteen ninety nine, which is when the film was made, they're fairly the touch is fairly lightd you know, if you made those same jokes now, those notes will probably be hit a lot harder. And actually the lightness of it is quite nice, I think, and it's so
it's kind of a brilliant film. But the thing for me that turns it into this work of comedy genius is a performance by one of the blokes that plays one of the aliens, the Thermians, and he's like the head Thermian and he's called Mathsar and he's played by this actor called Enrico colin Toni, who I hadn't really I don't think i'd seen him anything else. And he still pops up, he does bit parts here and there, but Enrico colin Toni does this amazing voice for Mathsar.
And I saw a documentary about the film the other day, fairly new documentary which I really enjoyed, and it turns out that Enrico colin Tony was channeling vocal exercises that actors sometimes do and they're just kind of, oh, doing weird things with their voices, and he was thinking, well, if I deliver my lines with these kind of weird vocal exercise intonations and cadences, then maybe that might be
the character kind of thing. So he does that, and he just makes every single line into this piece of jazz with all these surprise unexpected cadences and little ecstatic yelps, and then he.
Is kind of talking like this the whole time.
And it's magical. And then that, plus he does this sort of goofy grin, so everything he says he's smiling, and all the rest of the Thermians the aliens are all grinning the whole time as well, and they move around like thunderbirds puppets with their hands ahead of them, up and down as if they're being puppeteered, and fucking hell, it's funny and it works so well and it still holds up brilliantly. Plus it's a film with real heart. It's got a great premise which they do justice too,
and they see it through. It's really brilliantly paced, and it's a celebration of kind of fan culture before people really thought about all that sort of stuff, you know, nerd culture, before nerd culture became slightly wearisome. But it's about how much fans care about these things and how much they're invested in them, and wouldn't it be amazing if the two worlds collided, And it's so sweethearted and brilliantly done.
It's sort of perfect in it that film.
Yeah, flawless. Well they're doing a TV show of it, now, are they? I didn't know that, I thought so. I don't know. Well, everything's on hold because of the writers strike, but I thought that they were doing a TV version of it, which is hard to imagine. I don't know how that would work.
But Adam Buston, you have been amazing and wonderful and I'm very grateful for your time. However, when you went through walking them all in a few years, and you're walking past the vape shop and the mobile phone case shop and the tray of people trying to sell paintball experiences, and you thought, do you know what, this isn't familiar
all this? And you saw the very pretty people standing outside of the very shiny door and they were gesturing to you come in and come in, come in, and you looked up and at the top it just said you there, Naisier and you were like, I'm you. And you walked through the door and they sit you down on a lovely bed and they were like feeding you grapes.
It's like on this big scot big Imax screen and you were watching Alien and all your favorite film, Midnight Run was on and the airplane scene from Bridesmaids, and you're having such a lovely time and you don't even notice while you're there that someone sticks a little injection in your vein. You don't even notice because I've been such a nice time. And then you sit there and you see images of fields, lovely fields and grass in the sun.
And then suddenly and Ryan Reynolds and doing bands.
Doing some bloop of stuff, someone tripping over a bit of the set and laughing, people laughing. They can't get through their lines, they're laughing so much. And you can see a bit from with Nell and I they're laughing. And I walked past. I'm in the mall. I'm like, fucking know, and I'm carrying around my coffin, you know what I'm like. And I'm like, is anyone seeing Buckles? Anyone seeing him? And they go, yeah, I think he
went into that shop called euthanasia. And I'm like, oh, no, he hasn't as he you know we know what that means, don't you. And they were like, what, we haven't been in there. Well, you're not getting phone cases in there. I said, follow me, we go in, we find you dead. Look at that. He's absolutely dead. The thing is they've the stuff they've pumped into you has made you swell so much, so much more than I was expecting. So
you're much bigger than the coffin. So I get a lot of the mill workers, I said, come and help me. We get a load of axes. We start chopping you up, chopping up, chopping up, chop up your boy into lots of little bits. We pilot it all into the coffin. Scotshcush, you're all in there. It's really rammed in there. There's only enough room in that coffin for me to slip one DVD into the side for you to take across to the other side. And on the other side it's
movie night every night. What film are you taking to show Bowie and all the other musicians in music Heaven with all the music when it is your movie night, Adam.
Bust please, Well, that's that's a really tough question. Obviously. Can I tell you like some titles that I'm thinking? Yeah, I mean, obviously there's Galaxy Quest. I haven't known that to fail. That's so far not let me down.
Oh you're thinking of it also in terms of in the same way your's in the Share and disaster. You're like, I'm having to watch.
I'm in Heaven with David Bowie sat around and the Prince and all the in my parents all that stuff. Yeah, so I think that would I haven't known that to fail. Galaxy Quest is an absolute peach. I do love the documentary about Apocalypse Now parts of Hearts of Darkness. That is like one of the greatest documentaries ever made, with some amazing moments in it. That's a film that I've watched a lot over the years and shown to many people, and they have enjoyed it as much as I have.
But sometimes what you're looking for is just a kind of fun, stupid film that is gonna not scramble anyone's head too badly. They can just watch it and it's fun and it's a little bit exciting and a little bit dramatic and then everyone's okay at the end of it. And a good example of one of those films is Breakdown with Kurt Russell nineteen ninety seven.
I love Breakdown.
Breakdown's great, It's absolutely terrific. JT. Walsh one of the all time great character actors, playing a bad guy who's on he goes and well, he's menacing Kurt Russell and his wife played by Kathleen Quinlan. They're on a road trip out in the wilds of the American West, I think, and their car breaks down and these and mayhem unfold.
But it's brilliantly tight, well paced mayhem with a very satisfying day new More And if you like the River Wild, which I personally very much do, then you will enjoy a breakdown.
Excellent, excellent choice. You've made a lot of excellent choices. I'm giving you another temper. You're giving you thirty points for this, thirty two. Actually, Adam Buxton, I'm so grateful to you. I really I feel very honored to have spent this time with you. Is there anything you would like to tell people to look out for, to read or to listen to coming up from you in the next few months. Nope, right, thank you so much for doing this.
No, not really. I mean, you know, I'm just piddling along with my stupid life, and I've been taking some time off to try and do some more writing in a more you know, in the usual kind of memoirsh way, or in the same sort of way that I did with my first book. Ramble book, writing about you know, life and death and parenthood and all that kind of stuff. And I've been trying to make some music to put out on an album. That's been sort of fun. This a couple of a couple of good things so far,
but it's going fairly slowly. Things generally go slowly in my creative life. And I've been recording new episodes of the podcast, which should start going out. I don't know when this lair, but they should start going out in September twenty twenty three. More interesting and you know, genial people that I'm talking to. And yeah, very grateful for my lot, Happy to be able to do what I do, Grateful to anyone who pays it any attention whatsoever. And
thanks so much for having me on. I hope I haven't been too meandering and weepy.
You were wonderful. Thank you very much.
Have a good day, Thanks man.
Good dates. So that was episode two hundred and sixty. Remember to watch Ted Lasso and Shrinking on Apple TV Plus head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com. Forward Last Break Ghost Team to the Extra for twenty five minutes of chat, secrets and video with Adam go Japple Podcast give us a five star rating, but write about the film that means the most to you and why my neighbor Marien Love's reading it. It makes their christ things.
It's beautiful and it's really appreciated. I really hope you're all well. Welcome back. I hope you've been having a nice summer and everything's okay. Lost of love to you all. Thank you so much to Adam for being so great and giving me his time. Thanks to Scruby's PIP and the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace for producing it. Thanks to iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics
at least Alive Them for the photography. Come and join me next week for the biggest guest of all. No spoilers, you'll have to wait, but you are going to fucking love it. So that's it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week, and please, now more than ever, be excellent to each other.
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