Skip to content
Kermode and Mayo’s Film Thing seems a bit of a weird thing at first unless you’re familiar with their regular Radio 5 Live broadcasts which are also filmed in the studio via webcams. Each week, Mark Kermode reviews the films while Simon Mayo interrupts, and banter develops. I particularly enjoy the Film Review on BBC News (formerly Film 24, which remained even long after the channel changed its name from News 24 to, simply, BBC News), but also tune into some of the videos put on Youtube, particularly for those films which weren’t featured in The Film Review due to time.
Film Thing is a compilation, sort-of, of what we would previously get as being a number of individual pieces uploaded to Youtube. Personally, I preferred that as it means you can just dip in and out of the ones you want, rather than trying to find the start of the reviews you want to see, but at around 25 minutes, it’s akin to a TV show so I can see the reason for the format.
Personally, I dont think it works as well as the usual Webcam setup since it all looks too staged – like theyre trying to make it look like it’s been shot in the usual style, but it clearly isn’t. For example, the camera slowly pans about, it sharply zooms in and out, and sometimes goes out of focus. It basically looks like the cameraman has been on a heavy night out and had one too many Jagerbombs, and is exactly what BBC Click sometimes does when they’re trying to be arty. It’s simple. Just point and shoot. Please don’t try and be clever with the visuals. It actually distracts from the message. Or in this case, the reviews.
I like the idea of their Film Thing, which was borne out of their 10-minute 'thing' in Easter , a few weeks ago when they were inadvertently confined to the Broom closet, but next time, please just give us fixed cameras!
Now, I know this may look odd that I’m reviewing the reviewers, but…. I don’t have another way to end that sentence.
Oh, and this video also features an interview with the lovely Carey Mulligan, currently starring in a remake of Far From The Madding Crowd, but I’ll always remember her best, appearing in the Doctor Who episode Blink, as Sally Sparrow, the greatest companion we’ve never yet had.
Check out Kermode & Mayo’s Film Thing below, listen to them both on Radio 5 Live at 2pm every Friday, and watch The Film Review on BBC News at 5.45pm (plus repeats and iPlayer, etc):
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.