[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the neighbors are shy with Blank Check Uh, this movie has no quotes page and no tagline.
[00:00:28] A new film by Jane Campion. That's the tagline I'm seeing here on the poster. Right, and then there's a pull quote that says spectacular. It's a movie quite unlike any other you're likely to see. Sweetie is an original. It's from Vincent Camby.
[00:00:44] Vincent Camby, the legend. He was right. Could I have taken an extra two minutes to look for other places where there's maybe a quote not on IMDb? Yeah, maybe I could have. I don't know. I don't know. That's where it should be though.
[00:00:59] Yeah, I'm not seeing any tags. I mean this is the first time we've had a movie that has neither. We've had movies before with no quotes page but very few. Like two or three in total I remember. Someone build out the quotes page. This movie's got lines.
[00:01:15] This movie's got lines. Um, yeah, official selection, Can, 1989. That's a tagline on one of these posters. Okay, I got one. This is from cinema-fanatic.com and they do a movie quote of the day. And here was their movie quote of the day at some point.
[00:01:36] What if it does die? What? The podcast. Well, we'll get another one. Yeah, but this is our podcast. Talking about the tree? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's good.
[00:01:52] The accent was bad. I did a bad job. I wasn't prepped. I don't know. I don't have to tell you. Great start to a great app, Griff. Look, it's a great app. Just gotta keep on going. It's a killer movie but an absolute failing of the IMDB community.
[00:02:06] A website that's never done anything wrong. No, and look, this podcast is not gonna die. The roots grow really strong. They can split concrete. There you go. Hello everybody. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.
[00:02:23] I'm realizing now, you know this thing where people are logging podcasts on IMDB? Are they really? Like their movies? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, like a podcast is like a TV show and then every episode is like an episode and they add them to people's IMDB credits.
[00:02:40] There's a Blank Check IMDB page now and someone should start building out that quotes page. Oh God. Oh yeah, here it is on my IMDB page. Right. You got the credit. But I think they're the only singular episode listed. Praying with Anger.
[00:02:58] Praying with Anger Wide Awake. There are no other episodes filled out. Well, someone get on that. Not me though. Not me. Not me. No thank you. This is a podcast about filmographies.
[00:03:09] Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Sweetie. Very good. That was a little joke.
[00:03:23] It's a mini series on the films of Jane Campion. It is called The Podcastiano. The Podcastiano. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I only got it. That's our guest's reaction. I only could hear it when David said it. Sorry. I think it will work visually.
[00:03:43] I think visually it's going to track. Today we're talking about her second feature film, her first one that was intended purely theatrical which is called Sweetie. And returning to the show, co-creator of Search Party, Sarah Fowler Bliss. Hi. Hi, Sarah Fowler. I feel shy.
[00:04:10] All of a sudden you feel shy? Yeah. This happened last time I think too. When you introduced me I was like, oh no. Then you clam up. Right. The pressure's on. It's not like the Wild West of the first couple minutes where you haven't been introduced yet.
[00:04:25] You can say anything but it doesn't count. A little giggle here and there. A little giggle. Scattered giggles. Right off the bat I just want to say there were two big texts that happened in the blank check text thread last night.
[00:04:39] One is David sent us a video of. I think just a picture. Was it not like a live photo or something? Maybe it's a live photo. It might be a live photo. It might be a live photo. I don't want to tell tales out of school.
[00:04:54] It was a live photo of his daughter, the boss baby. Aw. Watching Sweetie. She did. I just had it on and she was transfixed by it. I think because it's so colorful.
[00:05:09] She doesn't always pay attention if the TV is on but I think because it's just such a vibrant, stark looking movie she could not stop looking at it. Transfixed by Sweetie. She's fully locked in. Yeah, you just said her name there which whatever. Oh, bleep it out.
[00:05:28] Bleep it out. Boss baby. Boss baby. I saw this when I was a kid too. Clearly older than a baby but my mom was watching it and I too was transfixed in a way that really got under my skin. Yeah, it's disturbing. If you're a kid especially.
[00:05:50] Yeah, super bleak and disturbing. But yeah, it's just funny to hear about your baby also having the same reaction I did as a child. How old were you? I think that I was, I want to say I was nine. Okay. Yeah, something like that.
[00:06:11] This movie has like the aesthetics of a children's film though. Like it feels like a Walt Dahl adaptation or something, you know? Yeah, weird. It's got that odd energy. Okay, so David sends us that text about the boss baby last night and then this morning Ben texts us.
[00:06:34] Do you want to read your text, Ben? Yeah, sure. I texted one of the best movies I've watched for this show. Well, you said, well, I get it because Sweetie fucks.
[00:06:49] Because as we've said, David's daughter, the boss baby was transfixed by the movie and I said I got it because Sweetie fucks. So was the boss Benny. It was kind of the boss Benny having a moment.
[00:07:03] And yeah, this is what I'll say and we'll obviously get into it more. I like weird, abnormal characters. And I just like when shit's different. And this was fucking cool as hell and so refreshing.
[00:07:17] I just recently had watched back to back the new Marvel movies and then also kind of had recently watched Dune and I was just like so samey. And then I put this on last night and I was like, man, I don't know. This is just exciting and refreshing.
[00:07:33] You know, it's another thing this movie has in comparison to the movies you just mentioned. Colors. Oh, right. A lot of colors. That's true. Yeah. It's all anyone can talk about in this movie is the colors. But it is wild.
[00:07:49] Like you watch this and you're just like, man, everything looks so fucking boring now. Yeah. I also saw this when I was a kid and then and it stuck with me.
[00:08:01] And then I believe that it was on the NYU list of movies to watch like before you get there, you know, like a very long list of movies that are like these are important. The canon. Yes.
[00:08:16] And I was like looking it up and I was like, oh, my God, that movie. That's Jane Campion. Like, you know, it was just a child, you know, at the time didn't have any reference for the filmmakers and whatever.
[00:08:30] So, yeah, I just had to it was like a I've had a journey with the film, I think. So it's like a movie that transfixed you when you were nine. Watching it over your mother's shoulder kind of sticks in your craw.
[00:08:43] And then like decades later, you see it on a list recontextualized as important film. Yes. And you realize that it's not like, oh, that's some odd movie that gave me a nightmare as a child. Right.
[00:08:56] Like it's like, this movie is actually a thing by a director I now know is taken seriously.
[00:09:00] I mean, I think I mentioned this in the last episode, but my first time watching this movie, like my awareness that this movie was I, David, I want to imagine it was maybe a similar thing for you. But being like a criterion dork teenager. Right. Sure.
[00:09:16] And this an angel at my table, I think we're both fairly early releases and you're like charting what each month, you know, the new announcements are.
[00:09:26] And a lot of times like that, that was the first I'd heard of some movie, especially if it was a more obscure, an earlier film in a major director's career. So it's like, oh, I know what the cover of that movie is.
[00:09:37] But sometimes criterion has artistic interpretation does not necessarily convey the tone of a thing. And then whatever the like short description is on the website. Right.
[00:09:47] I just always assumed this movie like, oh, chaotic sister takes over house and life was more similar in tone to later Jane Campion movies. Like I thought it was in that vein.
[00:10:01] A friend of the podcast, past and future guest, Alex Ross-Perry, and I went to see some movie at Lincoln Center. And this was playing right afterwards. And we were like, do I just stay for Sweden? Was like, yeah, this Jane Campion. She's important. We should see this.
[00:10:13] Right. And then like five minutes into it turned to each other and said, I had no idea this was the tone of this thing. Like even just the opening with the fucking psychic reading the tea leaves. Yeah. It was just like, Mark, this is what this movie is.
[00:10:30] And just being pretty like flummoxed by it in a good way. Yes. But it is bizarre to watch this now with like the rest of her career in the back of your mind, I think, versus like when this is her first major statement as a filmmaker.
[00:10:50] That's yeah. No, I know what you're saying because she becomes more of a whatever lush and sort of prestige director, although she's always weird. I don't actually know if I how to totally click. It is unlike anything else she's made, I suppose.
[00:11:08] Although I do think it's it's sort of of a piece with an angel at my table. That's that's that's a much very different movie. But they're both about being a young woman in some way, I guess. But it's the sort of shared thing.
[00:11:22] Is this like her only movie that could be fairly categorized as a comedy? Yes. Well, right. It's an odd comedy. It's been a long... I think Holy Smoke is the other one. Holy Smoke is the one that's sort of very heightened.
[00:11:37] That's the only reason I'm I'm like Holy Smoke might have like a lot of sweetie energy in a weird way. We'll get to Holy Smoke. I don't know. So SV, like are you a Campion fan in general? Like do you?
[00:11:51] I realized after I like because I was like, how does this compare to her other movies? And I've seen the, you know, the piano, the piano lesson, whatever. The piano lesson! Yes. And and but like it's pretty vague in my head.
[00:12:14] And then I was like, wait a minute, I haven't seen any of her other movies other than these two. So and like, again, knowing that Jane Campion is supposed to be important. I have yet not seen her movies except for this one that has stuck with me.
[00:12:30] And then when I think about the the the piano lesson, it's like the thing that really sticks with me from that is the weird sex scenes. And that kind of resonates in this. Right? Absolutely. And the non-sex scenes as well.
[00:12:48] I like this sort of weird, weird non-sex in this movie. Yeah. For me, look, Jane Campion came into my life because when I was seven or eight years old, the piano came out. Right? I probably just I was seven. Right.
[00:13:02] And that was a movie where I was like vaguely aware of grown up movies at that point. I'm watching the Oscars. There's this movie called The Piano. And I'm like, oh, OK. Is that like it's like a movie about someone who plays the piano.
[00:13:12] And that was a movie that all adults had to see. Right. Like, yes. Yes. Which is so funny to think about, considering that this was a New Zealand director of little, you know, like very arty note. Right.
[00:13:24] Like, you know, I suddenly made this big movie with American stars in it. And it's like, yeah, well, we're all going to go see the piano. And I just remember my mom being like, yeah, yeah. You know, there's the piano on the beach.
[00:13:36] And you know what? I can't explain the movie to you. I can't even begin. Yeah. And that's how I feel like Jane Campion goes for a lot of her movies. Yeah. And as much as she is a major filmmaker and has been for decades,
[00:13:51] she also has a filmography that's widely underseen because a lot of her movies come out and are greeted with skepticism apart from the piano, like maybe Bright Star. Like those are now the power of the dog, I guess. But even Bright Star got a little bit.
[00:14:06] Yeah, it was not major. It was it was it should have been. It was critically beloved, but it did not break through in a Oscar. No, right. Right. Not a lot of money. Right. I'm a couple of years younger than you.
[00:14:19] And my distinct memory was like, I think the English patient year was the first Oscars that I watched live where it was the same thing where I'm like, OK, this is the grown up movie.
[00:14:27] This is the one that every time they play a clip, everyone goes like, oh, oh, my God. And that's like the year that the Weinstein's finally pull off the thing they had been working towards with the piano and other movies where it's like now
[00:14:42] it's a blockbuster and it wins every category. Right. Versus like Piano gets these three big wins against screenplay and the two actress wins. But that movie more than anything, it's like a becomes one of the sort of totemic like art house Oscar breakouts of the 90s.
[00:14:58] And B, it has these weird Oscar stats to it, which is like she's only the second woman nominated for best director ever. And a Pacman's the second youngest person to ever win best supporting actress. That's that movie's kind of reputation more than anything.
[00:15:15] But I also saw, you know, Criterion's now finally releasing movies on 4K. And I saw someone online defending it being like, well, the thing that's great about Criterion is they're putting 4K releases out of movies that otherwise are really obscure and would have been forgotten, like the piano.
[00:15:32] And I was like, you don't understand how large the shadow was of the piano throughout the entire 90s. The shadow of the piano. But it was. And like her other movies couldn't come out from it, you know? But like it was it was a huge fucking deal.
[00:15:47] And as you said, David, felt like a movie that was like mandatory viewing for all intellectual parents. Had to see the piano. So that's why it's funny to come back around. Yes, yes. Early work.
[00:16:00] And you're like, oh, this is like like having like what if your big sister was this like horny poltergeist like that you couldn't get rid of? Like right. And it's so audacious in a plot way as well, where like the movie is called Sweetie.
[00:16:17] It's ostensibly like as you might maybe you read the back right. The DVD box and it says like, oh, it's about her sister bothering her. And you watch it for like 25 minutes. You're like, where's her sister? I don't get this.
[00:16:27] Right. It's about like a mousy girl who's like steals away a sort of a dumb guy like I don't even know what you're, you know, like there's nothing about this movie that really obeys how movies are supposed to work. And it's all the better for it, I think.
[00:16:42] To your point, David, the first 25 minutes I'm sitting there going, do I misremember what this movie is about? I thought it's about a sister. Not only is the sister not entered, but so much has happened in the first 25 minutes. She has her fortune told.
[00:16:55] She realizes her co-worker who just got engaged is actually the man she's destined to love. She steals him, makes out with him under a car. The relationship goes cold. They're treating each other. They're already in trouble, right? By the time Sweetie shows up.
[00:17:10] There's sort of like a three act story of their relationship before Sweetie enters. It's a lot of pressure to plant a tree like for your relationship. I relate to that, especially because it was founded upon omens.
[00:17:25] And so it's like the first sign of the tree not being healthy. It's like how are they not going to get in their heads about it? It's just, it is wild how fast this movie moves and how much it goes through.
[00:17:38] Yeah. I watched, uh, I watched this movie twice in the last 24 hours because I watched it with commentary once. Uh, sure. Cool. I was just very curious to hear how she talks about this movie. Is it just her or is it like her and Gerard Lee or something?
[00:17:54] It's her and the DP and then Gerard Lee shows up 30 minutes in like Sweetie crashing the commentary and changes the whole flow of things. I did like minimal, minimal research, but she and Gerard Lee had been in a relationship before they wrote
[00:18:08] the movie, which is pretty, pretty weird. They had been in a relationship and the movie is based on his family, but she kind of muddles that by dedicating it to her sister, which makes you think it's about her. But she was like, no,
[00:18:26] my sister had just been going through a lot of shit. So I was kind of dedicating it to her. The thing she says in the commentary is a campion's mother has like a horrible depression. Yes. At the end of shooting this movie in the last couple weeks,
[00:18:41] her mother has a suicide attempt and her sister like packs up her life and goes to tend to her mother so that campion can finish making the movie. So that's the main reason the sister gets the dedication. But it also makes me...
[00:18:56] But given the context of the movie. Of course, of course. But then when you hear that, you also wonder is the movie perhaps a little bit more about her relationship with her mother than it is about her relationship
[00:19:06] with her sister? Because she's like, my sister is more gregarious than I am. But both of us are pretty grounded, pragmatic people. But she does admit and there's this is in our dossier grif, like she knows she's being a little cheeky with the dedication
[00:19:21] because she knows how people are going to take that. She knows how it's going to come off. But I do think like this is obviously a heightened thing, but it is something that happened to Gerard. That's his name, right? Yeah. Gerard Lee.
[00:19:37] Gerard Lee. But it's his brother and they changed the sex of the sibling or whatever, like which is something Campion didn't want to do. Everything you read about the development of this movie does not conform with what you think watching the movie.
[00:19:54] Did she want it to be two brothers? I guess so. I think she was worried that it would come off odd to have it be about women. But now she's like, eh, the movie's great. So whatever.
[00:20:05] Yeah. I mean, and like she becomes a fan of Gerard Lee through his writing. He had already had some published work. Then they meet when she's in film school. They link up. They start dating pretty quickly.
[00:20:21] They make the short film together. Her second short, which Why Am I Fine by Forgetting the Name, Passionless Moments, which is very much his sense of humor and is the one other thing in her body of work that I think
[00:20:33] is pretty similar to this. But it's like black and white, very voiceover heavy. It's a series of sort of vignettes of odd moments in people's lives, interactions and stuff. So they make that together. They live together. She said their relationship progressed like very
[00:20:48] quickly. They moved in together almost immediately. And then it sort of like organically came to an end. Sure. He seems like an intense dude, like you're saying. But they seem to be on incredibly good terms. Yeah, they're buds.
[00:21:00] Right. So that's her second short. Then she makes the third short, Girls Own Story. Then those three shorts and Two Friends, her TV movie debut, go to Cannes. She's sort of anointed as like this is the next great director. There's the quote I'm sure you want
[00:21:17] to read, David. Gilles Jacob said to Philip Adams, head of the Australian Film Commission, you must give her lots of money so she'll be in competition with a feature film in two years. He basically went to the head of Australian movies
[00:21:29] and said like fund this woman's next movie and come back. It's literally like the Cannes Film Festival was like she is important if she does not come back. Here it is, is a societal failing. The wildest fucking thing is that her initial intent was for the piano
[00:21:48] to be her first movie, which at the time SV was supposed to be called The Piano Lesson. So you were right. You were right. Really? You were right. You were right all along. You were right all along.
[00:22:01] It's that I was like, OK, there's the piano and then there's the, I was like a piano teacher and then there's the pianist. There's so many different ones. Then I was like, ah, the piano lesson. The trilogy. It's the piano trilogy. Yeah, the Tinkling Keys trilogy.
[00:22:16] It's wild that it's like that was her first idea. She has this incredibly like. Which are all very important films. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. It's an odd, like important foreign art house trilogy. Yeah. No, it's just wild that she like out of the gate had that idea
[00:22:37] in her head and it was more that she was like there's that and then there's sort of like doing the early stages of what would become Angel at My Table. Right. Doing some sort of Janet Frame adaptation. And those things were on the table. Right.
[00:22:55] Right. But she starts writing Piano First. Piano Lesson. That's a movie she's been working on. Absolutely. She's noodling on Janet Frame. She has this heat from Khan and her like logic to it is to some degree like,
[00:23:07] I don't know if they'll let me make a movie like this later in my career. I mean, in different interviews she said different things that make it sound like there were a lot of different factors that went to decision. But she was like,
[00:23:18] this might be the one moment in my career where I can make a very strange low budget, tonally off-putting comedy. If I do the prestige movie now, A, I might not be ready for it and B, it'll be harder for me to come back around
[00:23:32] and make this odd thing. Well, also it's like people want a Jane Cannon movie or a Jane Campion movie. They want to see a Jane Campion movie right now. Later she can be like, okay, you didn't like Sweetie? Well, I got a movie about Janet Frame.
[00:23:46] Is that interesting? And they'd be like, oh, well, sure. I know who that is. You know, like later you can hook them with a different hook. But right now she's just like, yeah, I'm going to make you a Jane Campion movie.
[00:23:57] But the two other people on the commentary are just like, I cannot believe the foresight you had to organize that in your brain and understand that many steps ahead to build your career. And Campion says this thing
[00:24:10] about how when she was a kid, other kids would call her up and they'd be like, Jane, I could use your help. I want to go to the pool today. I have some homework to do. I want to go to the movies. And she'd be like, okay,
[00:24:21] this is the order in which you do things. That they would literally ask her for advice on how to organize their lives. Well, she's a smart lady. But yeah, she's with Gerard Lee. It's about being in a couple and the problem of being in love
[00:24:38] and not making able, you know, not having a relationship work. That's how she puts it. Right? Like it's clearly mining their own lives in this sort of weird love story. And the tree is right from their relationship. They had a tree growing in their backyard
[00:24:55] and he was obsessed over how they kept dying. And she was like, I don't care about that. I'm like working on my movies and my stuff. I don't give a shit about the tree. And that's why she like hits on the metaphor
[00:25:08] of like the strength of a tree, like this sort of, you know, and like the sort of frightening sight of a withering tree. The other thing that's really interesting in the commentary is she is so fucking goofy. In the, like when she's chatting? Yeah, the whole time.
[00:25:24] And it doesn't feel like it's just because of this movie, but they keep on talking about how funny she is in general. What's Sally Bonger's like? That's the director of photography who is kind of mysterious, only really shot this and disappeared. Was a film school compatriot of hers.
[00:25:40] Right. Had a similar background, went to art school. Yeah. This is a gorgeously photographed movie. It's sort of odd that she didn't really pursue that career. And she does apparently shoot Jane Campion's publicity photos to this day. That's where you see her name.
[00:25:56] But I just wonder what happened to her. I mean, they don't say she does talk about like she's a trivia fact as the first woman to shoot an Australian film. Oh, wow. And that Campion came to her and asked her to do it
[00:26:11] like it was a very natural thing. And she was like, I felt acutely of the wear of the fact that none of my male film school classmates ever would have even considered me for that and that I wasn't thinking of myself that way either.
[00:26:27] But with Campion, it was like a very obvious natural thing. There's a really interesting thing about the sort of development of her visual style here where they're talking about how both of them really liked having lockdown shots without movement and loading as much into the frame as possible
[00:26:44] and having the frame change over, you know, a long static time where through motion the composition of the frame can change dramatically. And they're talking about all the philosophical reasons they like that and whatever. But the other thing they said was
[00:26:57] that there was only like so much equipment and all the guys at their film school were very competitive about trying to like sign up for who can rent out the cranes or the dollies or any of the other things to do these like incredibly complex moving shots.
[00:27:12] And they were like, I don't want to fucking play that game. We're never going to beat them at that. We're never going to get our hands on the equipment. Let's figure out how to make the most out of doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
[00:27:23] And so I do think a lot of her being brought on to be the DP in this and everything is like sort of the two of them bonding in the foxhole, you know, to a certain extent. And it also sounds like they were both similarly frustrated
[00:27:40] by how didactic so much of film school was and how much they were constantly being told like you have to do this. You can never do this. Both in terms of the visual language in terms of screenwriting and everything.
[00:27:50] And this movie is in many ways like them saying... It's like a rebellion to all movies. Right. It's a rebellion to all movies, but it's also a movie about someone who refuses to conform to society and its rules. Which is the thing that Campion says like
[00:28:06] in her mind all of her movies are about. That she's fascinated by the idea of society and how we're told we're supposed to behave within it and how unnatural that is and when people push up against that in any way.
[00:28:16] And this is the movie that is that both in like sort of text and in actual form. But it's a very rich metaphor. The whole idea of sweetie like is odd. I don't know how else to put it. Like the idea of your sister or your sibling
[00:28:39] or whoever like someone who you are like this person is a problem. This person is messing with me and no one else being aware of it. I just love how outsized she is compared to everyone's reactions to her through most of the movie. You know what I mean?
[00:28:55] She's so wild and only one person seems to really be bothered by that until the end. Then more people get bothered by it, I guess. But it's also... I think this movie is somewhat about the pains of trying to live in a society
[00:29:13] as a quote unquote logical person. Right. Trying to live by rules. Right. She's trying to live by rules but also the first act of this movie is her throwing herself out of her comfort zone and being like, what if I go to a psychic?
[00:29:27] What if I follow signs from the universe? And that's not totally working for her either. You know? Something I loved is her relationship to the people, her co-workers. Like obviously she steals the boyfriend away, her fiance. But even like in the beginning when they're like
[00:29:45] do you want to look at the ring? Do you want to look at that? Like the way she says it, it is so abnormal and against societal rules. I fucking... I'm like immediately in on this character. It's not really my thing. Yeah. I'm not really...
[00:30:01] That's not really my thing. Like that is such a funny answer to that question. She's as strange as Sweetie just in a completely different way. Karen Colston is the actress playing Kay. She's so good. She's in multiple campaign movies as is Genevieve Lemon. Genevieve Lemon.
[00:30:19] Sorry. No, no. Genevieve. Yeah. I don't know. Genevieve Lemon who is great and who I think a lot of people in Australia know from other things as well. She was like on Neighbors which is a famous soap opera for years. That was her sort of breakout
[00:30:35] and she'd done a lot of guest starring parts on Australian sitcoms. Bad neighbors become good friends. That's the theme song to Neighbors. You know the Neighbors theme song? Neighbors is a huge deal in Britain. But how would you know that? That explanation only brought. What?
[00:30:53] And beyond that I was a member of the Neighbors Society which was a university society that I belong to. You paid five pounds to enter. Our only platform was that Neighbors should be played in the student union anytime that Neighbors is on the air
[00:31:10] which was like twice a day like 12 and 5 or something like that. And we succeeded in that and then we had thousands of pounds because everyone decided to join the Neighbors Society. We threw a huge party on the beach. Wow.
[00:31:28] I mean I was barely involved in any of this but it did all happen. That's nice you didn't pocket it. You spread the love. You gave that to your neighbors. Well, good neighbors become good friends. Neighbors much like Home and Away is the other big Australian soap
[00:31:44] but Neighbors is one of those soaps where it's like porn with the sex cut out. Like it's just sort of this very strange heightened world. The dialogue is very bizarre. You know like it's just sort of a cult fascination in Britain. Neighbors.
[00:31:58] Anyway, when else am I going to sing the Neighbors song on this podcast? Espy. Yes. You saw this movie as a child. Yes. You rewatched this movie when you're going to NYU or did you just note it and then you're like,
[00:32:17] I'm like did I rewatch it or did I just watch the trailer to be like what? There were so many. I think this is what happened. I watched the trailer because I was like I can't watch all these movies and so let me see which ones like
[00:32:31] whatever and then I watched trailer and I was like oh it's that movie and I think I was also like I don't want to watch it again and then I also think that scenes were brought up in classes at one point. Like I know that I've revisited it
[00:32:45] and I'm like I'm not going to be watching it again for this. And so what was it like? That was my big question. Right. Like how does this movie compare to your memory of it as a child as a thing that's kind of haunted you? Yeah, that's it.
[00:33:03] You know what? It's so the movie is so primal that there are still things about it that affected me in the same way that it's like it just gets in my head and I'm like as a child I didn't understand what was making
[00:33:16] me so uncomfortable and then as you know adults it was like oh okay it's these family dynamics that are like impossible to break and you know everyone's sort of falling apart. That really touch on like the shadow of of of what families can become and be and feeling
[00:33:45] feeling like just an ickiness again like I both times feeling icky. This time I would say it was like I'm not I don't think I'm actually enjoying watching this but I'm feeling like I know that it's really good. It's like I don't feel like I want to necessarily
[00:34:10] recommend this to people but but I but you have to like it's it's definitely good and like moving in a way that has stuck with me both times or however many times I've watched it. It is an odd watch like it does make you feel physically strange watching
[00:34:31] this movie. I like I found myself being like how much more of this you know like checking the timeline even though like I was fully appreciating it the whole time just being like and the end is so particularly upsetting if you've seen it before you're kind of watching
[00:34:49] in dread knowing where you're going to end up. Yeah even watching it the first first time as a kid I remember feeling dread like that that scene really stuck in me. I was like and I was like oh my God it's like when I when I like
[00:35:01] rewatched the trailer or whatever it was for film school I was like oh it's that movie where she's jumping up and down in the treehouse naked and covered in crap you know like it's just like oil. Yeah. And like you know I picked
[00:35:17] up on like the weird sexual dynamics to between like you know how it's you know something that really disturbs me in any movie is like adults who are children or like like a guy is really disturbs me anything that I like the
[00:35:32] adult is actually a child inside or like the child as an adult inside like you know the like the reveal is that the person you thought was a child is actually an adult or Benjamin Button or whatever that stuff really really
[00:35:46] disturbs me I'm kind of now just as I'm talking about I'm like I wonder if this was the origin of that but she but like when she's like you know bathing her father and you're like what what is this way now you're throwing this at me you
[00:36:00] know one pin in the bathtub thing and circle back to that some point because of campaign said the commentary is really interesting about it but I do think yes this movie has the vibe of movies that like upset me as a child but that I
[00:36:13] compulsively rewatch things that were in like cable rotation and I do think you're right that a lot of them have to do with like why is this adult acting like a child whether that's like part of the premise of the movie or it's just
[00:36:25] sort of a miscalibration where you're like this is broken like the tone of this is off this should be for me and it's upsetting me and sweetie is the only one of the movies in that sort of zone with that feeling that actually
[00:36:38] isn't meant for children but yet it like fucking captivates you and David's infant boss baby like there's there's something there I mean what's her name Genevieve Lemon on top of doing neighbors and the sitcoms and whatever had done a play in which he played a
[00:36:57] child and like that was the thing that sort of brought her to them at their attention and said like oh this is if she could do that for the whole movie that's what we need and there's the story of like the first day she's
[00:37:12] working with the actor the little boy he goes up to her and asks her so are you a grown-up or a kid Oh Wow and not as like what are you playing but as a like I don't understand you yeah you
[00:37:24] are the size of a grown-up yeah but you so thoroughly seem to be a kid it's like unnerving which is the whole central like conflict of the movie really but like a movie I talk about way too much that I'm obsessed with a
[00:37:41] sitting the Mets the lit with the Wiz which I had a very similar relationship to where I like watch that when I was a child that was why does this make me so uncomfortable and I felt very haunted by it and then like 12 years later or
[00:37:54] whatever I start watching all the New York 70s Sidney Lumet movies and I'm like this guy's the fucking best what else did he make in the 70s he made the Wiz what the fuck are you talking about so then I rewatched the Wiz to see how
[00:38:08] it fits into like my nightmare memories of it and then it's more confusing to try to go like how is it possible that this is the same person but also how did I not put together the weird connections between these things the
[00:38:22] way in which they do overlap it's just this thing is so visually and totally different than than everything else this person's ever made she talks about in the commentary this thing about how like so much of her visual style this movie was not a deliberate thing that
[00:38:40] it was sort of an organic process with her and she keeps on saying like I have no idea why I did that that way and then she goes like I guess I probably if I'm looking at it now I would say but
[00:38:50] she keeps on talking about how there was no sort of like intentionality behind it she has this really interesting line to where she's talking about like the frustrations of thinking that everything needs to fit into a clean three-act structure and like film
[00:39:06] school forcing her to read like Sid Field and Robert McKee and shit like that and she was saying Robert McKee apparently cites her movies often as a thing not to do right well that makes sense this movie does not obey anything about story structure like movies for
[00:39:24] a story structure it is it is successful in spite of that or it's successful because of that like that's up to you like to decide I think it's successful either way but like it's certainly if I was like I'm thinking like a sweetie plot structure right I
[00:39:39] don't know if I could pull that off like for basically anything well this is the thing she said that I was really fascinated by so like Gerard Lee's kind of saying that like and they talk about a lot how like Campion seems very
[00:39:54] serious from her work but is in fact a pretty light funny goofy person and Gerard Lee mostly makes comedic things and is like a very sullen kind of morose guy and that like that's often the balance of how artists work sometimes you know is there can be an
[00:40:13] interesting inverse from their personality to their sensibilities in their work and that's part of why they work so well together but they're talking about the fact that Gerard Lee is like really hard on himself about the fact that this movie does not conform to
[00:40:27] a three act structure and she's like A I don't think that's necessary and B I think we write that way to some extent without thinking about it I think you're kind of fucked if you sit down and you outline it and you go it has to
[00:40:40] do this and this has to happen by page 30 and whatever I think if you watch a lot of stuff and you internalize it and you let yourself tell and you let those stories guide you we do tend to organize things in this way and the analogy she
[00:40:52] comes up with is like when we speak we do not consciously think the next sentence I'm going to say needs to have a verb it needs to have a subject you know I couldn't agree more I've had these thoughts myself you just kind of
[00:41:06] instinctually know how to make a story and literally when you're just telling retelling a story that happened to you you don't you self edit very quickly you don't grammatically process or plan out things in advance of when you're saying them but you basically know how to speak
[00:41:22] as a person and more often than not say a correct sentence if unless you're me fucking verbal diarrhea is all the time but she's saying that like right if you've watched enough stuff and you've gone to film school and you've made your
[00:41:37] own shit and whatever it's not really helpful to sit down and force your script to fit into that box that stuff's gonna be in the back of your head to some degree and she was sort of arguing how the movie does fit into a 3x structure
[00:41:50] I would say it's like it's not like you can't follow it or anything you know it's right right it's three it's like a 9x structure but each that's the thing right is is at least there's at least three acts if you want it's just it's
[00:42:04] just the opening is there's just two sort of sharp left turns in this movie yeah and those that's where the act breaks kind of are I guess if you want to think about it that way you know you know I've got too worried about it but
[00:42:16] this movie just sort of transforms a couple times and that's that's as good a way as any to tell a story I think like and by when sweetie shows up as much as the first chunk of the film is sort of bewildering in its way like that it
[00:42:33] moves so fast and that so much is happening you're also like you're like you're also very ensconced with K you're you're on her side like I think you need to be on her side when sweetie shows up because otherwise you it would not just
[00:42:48] seem as it would just be like well this is a family of weirdos you know what I also didn't like realize when I was first watching it or is it like in the first in the first part work before sweetie comes K is really childlike but
[00:43:03] I didn't I didn't recognize that until sweetie comes I was like oh she's she's so like just has a rest of development as well and I didn't realize that until now that I see sweetie when K is so disturbed by the tree with the yellow
[00:43:18] leaves that they planted and can't stop talking about it and can't stop asking questions about why you know like is this a problem and then her solution is to rip it up rip it out of its roots and then hide it in her room that is such a
[00:43:34] six-year-old decision like yeah I feel like you know what I mean like when I broke something how am I gonna deal with this and it's not like you know what let me like take it outside and put in the trash it's like put it under my bed
[00:43:46] no one's gonna see it there for some reason like you know that's just logical when you're and if they ask you about it you should just go I don't know yeah I don't know why it's there I don't know yeah this movie has such a specific
[00:44:02] visual style that like I was listening to this commentary assuming that she was doing a math of everything she was doing right and she keeps on sort of like talking about how much of it was instinctual and then trying to sort of retroactively analyze what she must have
[00:44:19] been unconsciously doing at the time but the couple things she keeps saying or like a right the rebellion against film school and being taught there's a right way to do everything and trying to test whether that's bullshit or not right but
[00:44:32] then a lot of her decisions were just very broad general things were like she's like I didn't have a color palette for this movie there wasn't some key for what colors represented what things I just thought there should be a lot of
[00:44:45] color in it like I wanted that sort of like cartoonish energy throughout the whole thing and then the weird framing like the focus of the shot is never at the center of the frame and if they're multiple focuses they are at complete
[00:44:59] opposite ends of the frame and you have like shot reverse shot coverage where both characters in their coverage will be in like the lower right hand corner with all this negative space or some other weird object in the other quarter
[00:45:13] all this sort of shit and she was like hey I thought it was interesting and if I were to look at it now and try to think about what I was doing I think it was from the very beginning consistent throughout the entire movie trying to
[00:45:25] create a sense of unease so you have the color and the sort of energy and the poppiness making this movie feel like it's a comedy but I'm never gonna let you get comfortable because every single scene is so unbalanced and quote unquote incorrect from how we're taught movies
[00:45:40] should look which is just such a simple but like obvious way to approach it you know yeah it's honestly it's kind of like it's like a relief as a director being like you don't have to like over things like she's just like I don't
[00:45:54] know I just chose it this way and this is I guess that my subconscious was doing the work for me to make it feel uneasy or whatever you know and like I was like how as I was watching it when you're talking about like the
[00:46:05] character being in one side of the frame or whatever I like my film school thing I was like are they crossing the line here or is he just in the other frame like I can't dare they cross the line yeah dare they but it's like I
[00:46:17] don't even think they're crossing the line it's just opposite of the language we're sort of used to of how these things look and feel and whatever but it like fucking doesn't matter it achieves the effect she wants of putting in the space to watch this movie and I
[00:46:34] do think so often like she says this thing too about how and this is part of her sort of philosophy of having the camera locked down and having as much happen in one or two shots as possible within a scene or whatever but that like
[00:46:49] she'd watch other film school people who would have like two really important shots in a sequence and then would want to shoot like three or four other setups of coverage just for insurance right and she was like well then you're just you're
[00:47:04] you don't have enough time for anything the two shots that actually matter you're rushing you're not getting them right or the performances aren't right and then you're getting a bunch of other shots that you don't need now is like what if I only spend my time on the
[00:47:18] shots that I actually do need and I take the time to make sure they're as good as they possibly could be in every sense and she said they do the dailies every day and she had a lot of like female crew members on this but it was still
[00:47:30] probably when you say a lot of female crew members was probably 15 to 20 percent female right yeah and they would do these screenings of the dailies at night and the crew and the men would like laugh really hard they'd be like this is great
[00:47:43] oh my god this is so good should have shot more coverage though like even when it was working they still acted like she was doing something wrong by not giving herself the out to cut away from the weird things she had chosen she was
[00:47:55] like but it's working like you it's you like it like it fucking served its intent but some and some of these shots like there's the where all the women are curling their hair at the same time I love that shot there's the two
[00:48:12] cowboys doing the weird dance together yeah that scene is also so confused I'm like wait what this is the where did they go like I don't know this is a thing that she likes a lot that she did a lot in college dancing no to go to see
[00:48:28] the mounds oh sure sure which are those things about new zealand's right yeah you know there's a lot of weird shit going on in New Zealand especially I keep thinking about like pre-internet New Zealand you know there's only so much you could fucking do like probably
[00:48:45] made it sound like it was a semi widespread thing that she liked a lot that she would do very often and then I think as well go to a big dirt mound and that's what they do there they're like we're going on a vacation without
[00:48:59] sweetie and that's what they do right that's right it's like you can't come to this weird thing like the dirt mound hold down I mean the mother in this movie is a country-western singer who had never acted before mm-hmm she's and
[00:49:18] she's very good dad to dad had never acted right dad was like a background actor I've never done like dialogue before yeah she just loved his eyebrows he's got those nice dad brows but she also said that he showed up on set and
[00:49:34] he had like memorized all the dialogue and he was like so am I supposed to say it like a poem what like a poem right he was like how am I supposed to say this and it wasn't like he was looking for
[00:49:47] line readings he was like I don't know how people talk on camera fair I wouldn't know and then the kid she said like he his parents worked so hard to get him memorized that he showed up on set and he knew every line backwards and
[00:50:03] forwards but only as one continuous chunk like he only learned his lines and she said like you know your lines and he did the whole thing and she had to like work to break it into pieces because he couldn't separate the lines in his mind
[00:50:17] well she did a fantastic job because I love this kid he was great he's like buy a truck he's just so rambunctious yeah there's a really nice thing on the blu-ray too with the two lead actresses who like have remained best friends to
[00:50:38] this day like met on this movie and love each other Genevieve Lemon was saying that like she loved to sing on set and she would like do it in all the downtime and then Campion started saying like while they were setting shots like can you do
[00:50:55] another song for me can you do that one I'm just like stressed out can you do the song and would make her perform or perform for the entire crew like multiple times a day and the two of them would do these songs together and
[00:51:07] it was like oh she's like humoring me and how much of a ham I am that I like to do this and then like whatever it is four or five years later they're doing the piano right and both of them are
[00:51:18] working on that movie as well and she noticed that like with Anna Paquin who's what nine at the time while they're setting up shots she keeps on saying like Anna Paquin can you like do a song can you like do a routine for everyone
[00:51:33] can you do like a handstand or something and then she was like oh I thought she was humoring me as a performer she was treating me the way she was later gonna treat this child which is it is helpful
[00:51:44] to have them do a thing to get a lot of their energy out of their system and then make them focused right before the take starts that's a good trick should we talk the plot of yeah sweetie uh you know not not as we're saying not
[00:52:00] entirely conventional but this first chunk I do find very winning if not plot there's a lot of story yeah or winning is maybe not but like it's very engrossing watching this odd person K yeah navigate being a grown-up kind of badly but sort of you're still with her
[00:52:20] oh wow I'm looking at IMDB Griffin the story you know how IMDB has those like those those little keywords that they put for every yes yes so here are the top five for sweetie male full frontal nudity tree planting mouth full of
[00:52:37] honey tree planting mouth to mouth death of sister riding man like a horse oh yeah that's a great tag wait I'm gonna follow that I want to see where that leads me two things campion says very casually in the commentary one she likes to have characters take their
[00:53:02] clothes off in every movie a possible because she she wants like vulnerability and she wants like people in their most awkward sort of open states with each other and to she likes if possible to fit in at least one moment of main character going to the
[00:53:19] toilet in every movie first keep it real yeah keeps it real that's what it is right but her DP excuse me I keep forgetting her name got a great name and her name is Sally bongers Sally bongers was saying how radical radicalized like
[00:53:35] all the male crew members felt when this guy just casually takes his dick out on set and that all the female crew members were like do you understand how many times we see female nudity in movies sure that this is like not a
[00:53:48] thing that it wasn't any sort of statement for her but I think after seeing how affected people were by it then she was like I'm gonna fucking do this in every it's gonna be in all the movies in every movie that cuz like
[00:54:05] that sequence that like sweetie hasn't even shown up yet at that point I'd like that's what it's into the movie she's their relationship has gone cold right she steals this guy away because he's got a question mark on his forehead sort of which also by the way
[00:54:19] for some reason the question mark on yeah the sort of question mark on his forehead also for some reason really stuck with me when I was a kid and being like oh yeah it's creepy I don't know like it it's just a really like
[00:54:34] weird thing that I'm like one of these the things in this movie that I'm like I don't know why but that's making me uncomfortable right he's got a Superman curl on his forehead and then a mole right underneath question right and so
[00:54:50] that's the reason enough and they have this kind of hot encounter underneath a car in a parking lot but and then they move in together I guess but that by the time sweet before sweetie has shown up their relationship is has gone cold
[00:55:05] like you said Griffin and they're like okay well what if we just like you know let's have sex tonight we'll like put it in the books and they plan it we have to organize our sex right even though they're like like God knows they're
[00:55:17] just like young people doing menial jobs basically but and so they're right that scene is them lying next to each other naked and she she's like you feel like my brother like you know it's just it's gone like whatever tension here is it's
[00:55:30] just completely gone he's like yeah and he's like maybe it's more spiritual this way right I I love it it's just so it's funny that we're already there that's all that's I guess that's what yeah right and that's also the state of her
[00:55:46] relationship with the guy she's co writing this movie with at the time they're co-writing it where it's like well this was all the stuff leading up to this and then this project I moved in with you very quickly I thought we were madly in love I realized it's
[00:56:00] maybe more of a friend collaborator thing than a sexual thing and now let's figure out where we go from here and then like sweetie you know gropes him on the beach and they start making out and there's no consequences to that while right she's doing she's doing a
[00:56:16] demonstration of how good she is at licking yeah and it just within 35 seconds heightened to like full-on Frenching on the beach and everything everything happens very quickly it's like no don't like don't marry her we're destined to be and flip these
[00:56:35] coins and then he's like okay right I mean it's funny because it's like the the K character is trying to live like a reasonable logical life but I think it's conscious self-conscious about the fact that she is too beholden to the
[00:56:49] rules right so she's like trying to find alternative rules to follow where a sweetie just does not play by any rules whatsoever and gets to sort of kind of float through life largely unencumbered yes she does but she she is self-destructive in her like in her in
[00:57:13] her wanting to hurt other people because whatever it is that she doesn't like about it like when she chews on the horses which again I was like why it went as a kid what's happening when she spits them out and there's blood on the
[00:57:29] yeah it's just like but she doesn't I mean that's the problem it's like sweetie that's the problem as if there's one a problem she has is that many of the rules she does not follow are the ones that keep her safe and alive it's
[00:57:43] tragic though because you're not really sure why she's doing it I mean she just loves it's like she gets off on the chaos and I've known people kind of like sweetie before where they're just I don't know they just have this like wild chaotic fucked up energy you've
[00:58:02] definitely known some people I know I feel like I've known people like sweetie I can't think of who they are honestly but I'm like but I know I know that energy and I don't know like and it's so frightening to me and like oppressive to
[00:58:16] me that I'm like I've rejected it in my in my psyche of like I can't be around that kind of person I don't even remember the person that I'm thinking of you know but I have that feeling of like get this this energy out of my orbit so
[00:58:34] the the thing the bathtub scene that you mentioned earlier SV where she's like bathing her father and you see it only from behind but there's like a lot of time spent with her arms in front of his crotch right yeah and that when they
[00:58:47] screened it people read it as like an incest thing and that it was a sign that like they had some inappropriate sexual relationship when she was a child and that is why she's quote-unquote fucked up sure and camping was like that wasn't my
[00:59:02] intent at all my intent was she doesn't have any boundaries she does not understand what she should or shouldn't be doing in any moment and the fact that he just kind of sits there passively is showing that the problem is less that he
[00:59:16] crossed lines with her as a child it is more that he had no point ever established any boundaries for her whatsoever yeah that makes sense to me like I when I watch it too I was like I was is it going in this way the
[00:59:28] direction and then it never and I was like no it was it like I didn't articulate it the way you just said it like it it didn't have it didn't have a like oh she was sexually abused energy at the end of the day with
[00:59:41] it it was just like what is that you know right I mean I think you have to think about camping growing up with like you know clinically depressed mother and having to contend with behavior that it perhaps is not exactly like this is
[00:59:57] stuff that is sort of like irrational cannot be explained but campion talks about her mother with like a great amount of empathy where it's just like it's this horrible fucking disease she has you have no idea how awful it is to watch someone suffer from that up close
[01:00:13] you know there's no easy answer there's not like a reason there's not an inciting incident you know I mean she's talked about in a lot of ways how it's and this was her recording this commentary what like fucking 15 years ago or whatever so it was you know even
[01:00:31] worse than than it is now marginally but that like these things are just not treated like diseases which they are if you grew up as a child of someone in a household like that you understand this as a disease not just like well she's a
[01:00:46] little kooky or like she has to get over it or whatever we want there to be an explanation of course as there oh as I feel like we always feel the way that way whenever we know someone who's sick or who's depressed or who behaves
[01:00:59] strangely or what right you're like wow there's got to be a reason like I want to know why like right you know because it makes it feel like it'll be easier to fix it that's that's part of why this movie is uncomfortable you want there
[01:01:11] to be a problem right well here's the deal with sweetie well I think it's because she's really good at that chair trick I think that's the problem I think that's really where it all yeah that's also like like the end of the
[01:01:23] movie is that flashback of her singing and her singing is not well you know like and so it's like I know it's a glimpse of her as a child right the glimpse of her as a child and like getting the attention of her father for
[01:01:36] that like it's it's this like oh she's they they enabled this in each other in some way it's like the that I don't know yeah and then doing the chair trick and then like the father starts to try to do the chair trick anyway Ben do you
[01:01:53] like her buddy I feel like you must like her sweetie's oh yeah Bob Bob yes yeah well and that kind of like I don't think we have to spend too much time on it but the 90s I think we have to spend
[01:02:08] 45 minutes on sure I mean the 90s of this movie to me Bob feels so just like kind of pulled out of that time where he's like got this weird rockabilly kind of like punk kind of vibe to how he's dressing definitely obviously a heroin
[01:02:24] user but again they are bringing out the worst but kind of you know it's so entertaining to me the way they are around each other just drunken fucking animals like yeah I mean the scene where Bob the dad takes Bob out for lunch and
[01:02:42] he fully nods off and drools on himself is like he's like still asking him questions while he's drooling it's like it's like so is she gonna make it what do you like here it's played at the size of like a fairly brothers movie yeah it
[01:02:56] still work that's that whole thing is so fascinating to we're like the dad keeps on sort of justifying to K that like you don't understand sweetie's not like us like she's creative she's capable of doing all these things there's this sort of like rationalization of like we
[01:03:12] cannot fix her because she's operating a different level than there's a reason she's this way and right also and they can't let go of the the sweetie you see at the end of the film that the child that they remember is this cute little
[01:03:26] performer so whenever but like yeah this scene where he takes Bob out for lunch and you just assume this is gonna be a class of like overprotective dad thing where it's like who the fuck is this guy you've got her believing in some show
[01:03:39] business dreams we've been down this path before like I'm gonna lay down the law and then his end point he gets to is like so you really think she can make it huh like he's doing all the wind up of like you have to understand right you
[01:03:52] we've gone through this a lot you know she's been burned before but you think she's really got it and the guy's fucking drooling on himself also he's clearly like hooked up with the waitress and she hates his guts yeah and the dad
[01:04:06] it's just kind of like it's not registering with him but it's like I'm not gonna let him at all that seems amazing I love how much you love this movie Ben yeah I never I didn't think about it I didn't think that this would
[01:04:19] be the Ben movie but I should have of course it's so my energy like chaotic just weirdo people like my one of my favorite movies is gummo so it's like you know what I mean like this is just it's got that like I don't know buzzy
[01:04:33] energy it's funny to think about like this movie premiered like she's the bell of the ball right and she takes this movie to can and like some people boo it which like is obvious and some people like disgusted by it and I'm like you
[01:04:50] know I read that I'm like oh yeah sweetie's a little polarizing I'm not stunned to hear that it didn't like go over with like gangbusters but I think for her it was kind of like what the fuck is this why are people mad like she
[01:05:02] naively said like she said like we cried and cried like you know like that they were just gonna be like hailed as heroes and maybe that's another reason she sort of ends up now like after this dusting off the slightly more prestigious
[01:05:18] stuff even though angel at my table on the piano are still you know very idiosyncratic like they're very hard she does three more conventionally prestige II period films in a row and then her next two films after that are her only two other weird American sex
[01:05:34] movies that rule and her only like present-day films which are very poorly received both of them true that is true and now she's back of course her last two movies have been period films although you know what's at the top of
[01:05:50] the lake is that's a that's TV my friend that's TV sure but yeah it is TV but it's highly acclaimed TV see me the plate at the Cannes Film Festival yes but yeah no it's just I I find this movie so transfixing but I it makes me
[01:06:06] sad I mean like and that's not a complaint it but it definitely bums me out and I watched it last night and my wife was very unsettled but she was like again it just seems to be just sort of against the rules like what it's
[01:06:20] like you know it would be almost I think more easy to take if it was like about a person with a problem and you're dealing with the problem right and I was like right like you know here's sweetie and here's what's wrong with
[01:06:33] her and here's what she's dealing with but it's it never pins that down so instead you're just sort of constantly feeling like you're shifting uncomfortably in your seat also like when she dies no one's really sad and then and I also as the viewer was like
[01:06:49] relieved I was like thank you there's some release sweeties out of my life especially since sweetie's final act is so chaotic that you're like I don't know how this is supposed to end like the the herd jumping up and down in the
[01:07:02] treehouse goes on for so fucking long and you think the kid might get you know like obviously I'm worried about the kid like there's there's that sort of creepiness to what's happening but they keep on doing that shot for underneath where you see sort of like
[01:07:18] the floorboards like creaking it they just string out for so long that yes I do think there's a relief when it finally happens you know they like the kid safely grabbing onto the trunk of the tree like he caught himself and he doesn't have a scratch and then
[01:07:33] she's there dead she will not stop like coughing up strawberry syrup right it just like keeps on coming out of her mouth but there's the relief and there's also I think the sense of like sad inevitability from her family where
[01:07:47] they were just like well it was a matter of time yeah also it's like call the police or call someone and they're just standing there and you're like yeah just let it be this moment she feels it feels like an animal a little bit yeah you know like
[01:08:04] there like she's so animalistic but almost kind of the way that she's treated yeah in that moment it feels like the passing of an animal like the stakes are lower yeah that that was the the other thing that Lemon said and the
[01:08:20] making of thing is that she had done another play right before this where she had to be naked on stage the entire time so it was like right I'm into it I could be like I'm into it but it's like I've desensitized myself to this I could be
[01:08:33] naked for four days of filming I can play a child the entire time I know how to do this Jane please can I tell you one thing I have no problems being in the nude that's what she says when Jake because Jane was like Campion was like
[01:08:46] look if you don't want if you want to wear clothes to the scene I will make a fuss and Lemon was like no that's that's fine I get it even when she is wearing those clothes are like dress she's like still like me right and like how
[01:09:00] many scenes in this movie does she just like suddenly take off her shirt yeah you know like she's usually she's an underwear for a good percentage of this movie I mean there's the thing in this as we like when it's right she doesn't
[01:09:14] know how to dress herself like or whatever she gets halfway done and then she's sort of like this is it right I don't have to like button my shirt or anything like that but I do have to like button my shirt and then I'm like
[01:09:25] okay I'm done it's like she also has like Madonna gloves on you know right turn with this so well there's the thing in this SV which like when I hear people talk about search party right it like so often they go like I like I have
[01:09:43] to like space episodes out because it makes me so uncomfortable but there's the thing I think you and Charles do especially on season by season basis where it's like you you as opposed to I think so much prestige TV and streaming TV and whatever where it's
[01:09:58] like things are sort of drawn out for as long as possible you know you're like prolonging the inevitable I feel like the two of you and everyone else who works on the show with you will like write yourselves into corners of just going like what's the most extreme
[01:10:13] fascinating thing that could happen now and then we will solve what you do after that rather than being worried about how you go further from that point and and this movie has a lot of that energy and I think similarly that thing of like watching people with incredibly
[01:10:29] complicated somewhat toxic codependent relationships put themselves increasingly uncomfortable situations but it does not feel like the movie is getting joy from that or that's mocking it like there's a weird balance of like genuine love for the characters while also recognizing their failings and
[01:10:49] with watching them having to contend with more and more complicated situations of their own doing yeah it's funny because I forget that like often my work is hard to watch and that people don't are like oh and and how how much I felt that when watching this right
[01:11:07] that's why I bring it up because yeah you were talking about watching this movie I do hear it from people who will end up finishing all of search party and going I'm glad I did that that was great but it took me a while yeah yeah
[01:11:19] no I it's it's funny like that does tend to be my favorite stuff too even though I wouldn't say that this is like my favorite movie but I I appreciate it so much for tapping into that because this is just more unfamiliar to me than what
[01:11:39] what like the dynamics between this in this family and the husband or it's like a little bit it's not actually my territory but it is sure it is like the the uncomfortableness that I am always like exploring so it's it's a it's
[01:11:59] interesting that I feel like oh yeah I didn't even think about how that's how my how my work tends to come across especially for something you watched at such a young age where most other movies you see that look like this and
[01:12:16] have this kind of comedic energy are not punishing you in the same way there's an interesting thing like Chris Noonan is in the special thanks of this movie right Chris Noonan of Babe fame the director of Babe who weirdly only ever directs two feature films in his entire
[01:12:37] career Miss Potters Chris Noonan right because Babe and Miss Potter and gets like a Best Director nomination as first director over 10 years and then as once again received but it gets a lot of weird special thanks credits on things or consultant credit on things and he
[01:12:57] started in Australian cinema in like the 70s I mean he made like a student film when he was like 16 that won festival awards worked on TV was deeply entrenched in the industry and and like Babe is the movie coming years after
[01:13:12] this that I think has the closest vibe to this movie weirdly of anything else I've ever seen but there is some sort of shared like continuum between like this Babe obviously the other George Miller films but especially his earlier films the early Peter Jackson movies like
[01:13:31] there is some odd overcranked cartoonish but like quietly dark New Zealand Australian comedy vibe that I never really see in American films and most of those filmmakers end up like as they get older evolving that style a little bit going out of it but like there's a
[01:13:51] very specific feel to these movies and also I guess most of those films I mentioned are all happening around the same time I mean those careers are all starting in the late 70s through the mid 80s that's when like Australian cinema is revived and you're right like
[01:14:08] that's when it's there's serious investment again I guess right that's where you know all this is coming from and maybe maybe they were a film school contemporaries I don't know I just wonder what's culturally going on there there's this like very light down there
[01:14:27] these these dark Looney Tunes movies you know yeah it's weird down there that's weird I don't know I don't want to be stereotypical about Australians but Australians are all crazy it's the craziest country in the world I have no concept of what day-to-day life is like
[01:14:46] in Australia every time I see a movie that takes place in Australia I I feel so like the environment feels so foreign to me and you know literally like winter is summer and summer is winter there Christmas and summer what yeah and like
[01:15:03] it just feels so if there is something about a lot of Australian movies that I'm just like have a sense of unease with with them and I like Muriel's wedding which I love oh yeah it just there is also that same sort of like discomfort
[01:15:25] and I'm very curious what the I don't know literally just what it's like to live in Australia yeah it's weird I don't know I I've never been and I'm super I grew up in a country that is super biased and stereotypical about Australian people
[01:15:41] which is the country America America we judge Australia I think Americans crocodile I think the American take on Australia right is is the crocodile Dundee take right where it's like oh yeah those guys are like a good time they drink beer they throw shrimps on
[01:15:58] Barbies they wrestle crocodiles right like that's what it's like down there and like Brits are like those they're savages they're crazy like you know like they like there's the they drink even more than we do and they you know I don't know there's there's this sort of
[01:16:13] like harsher edge because Brits are so prejudiced about certain countries it's very funny I mean this is also classic dumb grift dumb brain shit but like I remember being a little kid in like elementary school and a teacher telling me that she was from Oregon and I was
[01:16:30] like with like covered wagons and shit because my frame of reference is a trail that's in my mind I was like this game represents what Oregon is like right now right I was just like this is what Oregon has always been and will
[01:16:43] always be and it's like I've been to Sydney twice I still whenever I hear Australia think of the Outback like it's hard for me to contend with the fact that there are really cities where people are wearing clothes and shoes I
[01:16:55] started this but like I really have to apologize to our Australian listeners it's very cosmopolitan country in so many ways I'm excusing I'm apologizing for myself no I'm apologizing for myself here I'm acknowledging that I'm a fucking idiot and I've seen it for
[01:17:11] myself but what I'm saying is more offensive role and New Zealand is now just thought of as the Shire I feel like in most American minds where it's like this idyllic fucking fantasy land but I just I don't understand culturally what's going on and I hope it fucking
[01:17:27] listeners at me and give me good links to read or someone explains or we find something later in the other episodes here but culturally what's going on where it's like because he had Muriel's wedding is another one like the Jocelyn Moorhead PJ Hogan thing as well
[01:17:44] it's like there's some odd vibe to New Zealand and Australia and comedy that is very unique especially from New Zealand and Australia and it's like it's like a mix of all of these things from like 1983 to 92 or something there's also like just thinking about
[01:18:06] these two movies like their haircuts are like kind of off in a weird way you know yeah their their style is is is is I don't even know if it's out of touch or if it's just doing its thing like I
[01:18:21] don't I don't have a context of it other than watching these movies so I'm like yeah I'm not sure if it's like you don't hear anyone else outside it kind of feels maybe a little bit like deserty Tucson or something like I
[01:18:35] don't know I am I've always been kind of fascinated with what what is it like to live in Australia I guess this is an Australian film I should take the back obviously she's this is fully an Australian film yes after going to Australian film school working with
[01:18:50] Australian people but but there's like that weird sort of like manic scary Australian comedy at this point in time and then I feel like when I see Australian comedy shit from like the mid 90s on that's gone it becomes gentler again sure I mean I do think
[01:19:05] there was also more crossover hits that were more gentle crowd-pleasers coming out of Australia in the 90s and 2000 castle and shit the castle the dish you know those sorts of movies that are right family-friend babe obviously but you know yeah there's obviously there's
[01:19:21] sort of you know there's weird humor and sort of avant-garde II stuff always bubbling out over there so you know so it's at the ends of the earth and the Sun is you know two inches from your face and you know there's a stereotype
[01:19:38] again yeah there's like this doesn't weirdly like the movies almost feel Todd Solon Z in a way like in that era this one is special yeah it's like yeah it's so it's it's interesting Todd's laws is a good comparison for this movie like
[01:19:58] welcome to the dollhouse is a decent comparison for this movie welcome to house is more straightforward plot wise right like you know it's a yeah right but still but it's like if Danny DeVito directed a Todd Solon's script right it's it's more whimsical is they like
[01:20:15] it's a little less right sweetie isn't bleak exactly there's this weird like fable like quality to this movie I guess because it's so heightened that's that's their protection you have with sweetie right you're like this isn't real like like you know it's good again I do think
[01:20:35] it's sort of like a haunting movie all like right yes you could describe it that way like she really is kind of like a poltergeist everything she does is so weird yeah and she's this sort of problem they have to confront and weather and
[01:20:49] destroy and then they're free of her but they're still kind of haunted by it with you because the last shot of the movie is like haunting like you know the ghostly glimpse of her as a baby as a kid but she this is what I keep I just
[01:21:06] keep like when you're when you if like this is not my situation I'm not going to be like this is not my situation but if like I had an older sibling or a younger sibling and we were all grown-ups but my parents were
[01:21:20] kind of still you know letting them off for being a fuck-up or being a weirdo or whatever and I was trying to be normal and like maybe you know that that sibling just kind of grows in your brain into this sort of like super
[01:21:34] chaotic person like beyond like they're taking maybe this story from Gerald Lee's life and they're just like what if I was like you know ridiculous proportions of your wild sibling who everyone is indulging in a weird way well look it reminded me unfortunately
[01:21:50] of the very dark period in my life a couple of years ago when I started obsessively watching Dr. Phil because I could not get over Dr. Phil phase yes I could not get over the juice of those episodes where someone is like a maniac
[01:22:03] and the rest of the family's on the panel they're like yeah we don't know what to do and Dr. Phil's like come on I mean that's the the worst thing that can happen to you is having someone like that be in your immediate family
[01:22:19] because you can't right you can't like you to an extent you can sort of like set boundaries that are like I'm not gonna talk to you if you're talking that way but you can't be like you're out of my life I mean there are of
[01:22:32] course situations where that happens but like generally with that especially if they are you know mentally I don't know ill then then like you have to you have to confront it constantly and then in doing so you're not actually confronting you're just like
[01:22:53] disassociating yes this is this is where they're here right now but hopefully I can they'll leave my house and then I can go back to my other life that's like not that's right that was the thing I on your shoulder all the time the thing
[01:23:09] I could not fucking get my fill of watching dr. Phil was like I don't know what to do and be like look at everything you're doing you're enabling them this is all fucking terrible and they'd be like I don't know like disassociating from it creating this
[01:23:29] little bubble of deniability right to like keep themselves safe from having to acknowledge the reality of everything all the time but then you also go like how are you feeling and you're like terrible my life's a mess like nothing's working the woman who's like son hasn't
[01:23:43] left bed for four years and she's like why why won't he get out of bed and it's like because his TV is right there who brought his TV and she's like well I moved the team but I but it was because
[01:23:53] he wouldn't get out of bed what am I supposed to do who empties his urine jars I mean I do but who else if I don't do it then who's gonna do it I tell this person the rock working out yeah sorry
[01:24:03] oh my god I don't know this thing where the rock pees in bottles I just think yeah he pees in bottles while he's working out and people like why and he's like well the places I work at don't have bathrooms and I'm like why don't
[01:24:17] you go to a place that does have a bathroom it seems like a better better way to do it in my opinion that's all yeah let me just uh he pees in bottles and then uh sells them as a terramona tequila oh boy he's working out
[01:24:30] so much that you know I when I go to the gym it's not like oh I've got to take a pee break in the middle of the gym right you're like every five minutes baby I gotta bust it out yeah get me that Voss bottle joyless I'm
[01:24:45] sure it was my boss he's peeing in a Voss absolutely yeah um is there anything else about sweetie I'm looking at the any other scenes we're not thinking of what about the dream sequences because I feel like we touched on the last you know the last thing at
[01:25:00] the end there with like you know the dream sequence of her as a girl but it's throughout the movie and I really love it and it's weird as hell and I can't even there's there's random images like it's very dreamlike it's hard to
[01:25:13] even like and very Ben oh totally but like there's like a part where there's a dream sequence where it's kind of like a more to do with the tree and it being buried or rather not buried sorry under the bed and it's just like all
[01:25:27] these quick weird shots and it's like it's very emotional but like again it's hard to put your finger on what really it's trying to say I actually was like did she rip up the tree in her sleep or did or was there that not part
[01:25:42] of the tree you know like it's kind of edited in a strange way right the tree is very on tree I really I can't get over her putting the tree in the closet also it was I was just like okay so what's the the emotional response to
[01:25:57] the relevance of this tree like what is like roots okay root like family roots you know like that the whole time I was just like there's the trying of trying to decode what exactly they were getting out with the tree and I wonder what
[01:26:13] Jane had to say about it in her commentary just like I don't know the tree was interesting because then there's also like a root in her great in her grave right has to be cut you know oh yeah but that's the thing like she's rarely one-to-one where she's
[01:26:28] like and if you think about it the tree is X she's more like what you're saying Griff she's like yeah that image really stirred something up in me so I knew I had to get it into the movie it happened
[01:26:38] which are to me and then I thought that would be good for the movie and I love this quote about sweetie coming out in America where she says I love comfy sofas not hardback chairs so I feel guilty when people say I felt
[01:26:55] uncomfortable watching it like she yeah she wants to make you a comfy sofa she just can't do it I guess she's just sort of like well it's another hardback chair I'm sorry I hope you like it I mean another thing that adds to just the
[01:27:10] weird vibe of this movie is that the score is all like gospel choir mm-hmm oh yeah which is just not what you're expecting to go along with these images and vice versa you know everything that this movie is like out of ten but each
[01:27:28] ten is in a completely different direction she got a lot of Lynch comparisons when this movie came out which makes sense mm-hmm it's funny that that's where people started with her because I don't think it's where she goes no but I do obviously because this
[01:27:44] movie is sort of quasi kitsch and has a lot of like very stark you know imagey visual you know like I get why people would like to see her in person like and she sort of rolls her eyes at it but
[01:27:56] she's like yeah we both like our art school people so like I sort of get it yeah but but like you know obviously that's there's nothing else she makes that I would I would say really lines up closely to David Lynch at all the
[01:28:11] goofiness of his his like interest in meditation feels like yes he loves meditation right well sure and it's the way it's portrayed though even where he's like what is he doing I love that scene the class and then she tries to meditate the other class she's like
[01:28:30] well I'm not gonna enjoy oh I related to that so much like what you're like I can't do it she has a profound experience yeah yeah sort of a scary experience I don't think it works I just love how that guy just says like
[01:28:46] that's fine like that's yeah he just only has the one answer just fucking you're doing it any of you guys meditate anyone ever meditated everyone tells me to do it all the time it's one of those things that anytime you do yeah but but
[01:29:04] I do guided meditations that are also sort of like hypnosis so oh that's that might be better like I just I much I much prefer guided meditations yeah I'm not I'm not very good at guiding myself in any way towards anything I can't sit still I can't like
[01:29:23] not think so exactly pretty hard stuff I need a guide with like the little flag at the stick saying like over here over here but like I also very much appreciate the like torture of meditation and how it's like wait this
[01:29:42] is good for me how yeah exercise same deal just like yeah I know I know I would I would say that I've never had like some people who meditate regularly are like it changed my life and I'm like I don't know if it changed my life
[01:30:00] really like it's like it kind of I don't know sure I guess that's my dubiousness is like people tell me about it and they're like I think it would really do a lot for you and I'm like I agree you're probably right then they're like
[01:30:13] it fucking changed my life I I'm eight times more powerful than I was before and I'm like now you're making me not believe that I don't know if I believe that they're like I'm looking at your life and I don't know it doesn't right
[01:30:26] let's see that much different right I'm like I believe that it helped yeah well cuz I also feel like that's the kind of thing where people get into it and they're like I teach it now and I'm like I teach it now what do you mean
[01:30:39] like yeah I'm a guru I'm like ha okay cool man I mean you're really into it did this movie get a proper American release David it did this movie was released in New York in 1990 January 1990 after playing the New York Film Festival and it was out in Australia
[01:31:00] the year before September 89 I don't know if it had like a much wider release than like sure you know big cities in America or whatever but it did get a little release and it was a festival favorite you know festival sweetie it
[01:31:16] was a bit of a festival sweetie it was a can it was a tiff it was in New York and then it you know went to some other places and it made like 400 grand in Australia which I have to imagine is is
[01:31:30] as much as anyone hoped for right like I mean I don't think it was a little bit of film that cost way less than a million dollars and then an angel at my table is basically you know in the works like that was that that that comes out
[01:31:46] just a year later in Australia so she's working right she's already getting to work on what she thinks people want out of a Jane Campion movie she's like okay I got I did that one thank you for giving me the mulligan so sweetie do you
[01:32:04] want me to do the box office for January 19th 1990 because that's what I was gonna do I think it's time yeah all right okay look this movie came out early 1990 so number one is a holdover from the Oscar season of 1989 it's been out
[01:32:20] for six weeks driving Miss Daisy no driving Miss Daisy is in the top ten it's a number eight okay but this is I you know what this was probably driving Miss Daisy's biggest challenger because this movie wins Best Director at the
[01:32:36] Oscars born on the 4th of July it's born on the 4th of July okay Tom Cruise as Ron Kovach yeah an Oliver Stone film have you seen born on the 4th of July SV no I was gonna say isn't do the right thing that same time or something
[01:32:52] it is yep but obviously that was not nominated for Best Picture it wasn't nominated at all okay yeah just yeah when it got screenplay and supporting actor for the white guy yeah right yeah I have never seen born on the 4th of
[01:33:08] July either it is funny when I watch obsessively the Siskel and Ebert Oscar specials from each year when I can't fall asleep that year they're talking about how they had been like very dismissive of Tom Cruise up until that point and they were like okay fair enough
[01:33:26] we're ready crow here's the movie he finally proved that he's actually an actor and not just a movie star he's like 29 in that film like when he made it he's like third yeah yeah right yeah it is just while that his career was so
[01:33:41] dominant so early on that by 29 he was having to prove to people like yes I know I've made six mega hits in a row but now I'm gonna slow down and do a serious searing drama with the man who just won Best Director to prove that I
[01:33:56] can really act I love Tom Cruise I mean we all we've all got a soft spot for Tom Cruise on this podcast he loses he should have won not in terms of I think it's the best performance of the year it's actually not my favorite Tom Cruise
[01:34:11] although he's good it's a very committed performance you know he's very in it but he was viewed as being unbeatable he was certainly the favorite but he loses to Daniel Day-Lewis from my left foot who not only is that performance obviously also insanely
[01:34:25] showy but that movie became the kind of feel that's the original Miramax feel good out of nowhere thing I'm kind of wondering if maybe when I saw sweetie it was like my mom was on some like kick because I'm like oh I also
[01:34:42] remember my left seeing my left foot really young and also yeah disturbed disturbing she must have been been on a kick of like what are all the important films this year that I'm gonna watch the serious movies no my left my left
[01:34:59] foot is like I feel like the first successful execution of like the Weinstein attack on the Oscars and then by like the piano things are really up and running it by English patient they've perfected it and they can like sweep the whole board yeah it's like you know
[01:35:15] little do they know I guess but like they're gonna have so many other chances to give Daniel Day-Lewis an Oscar right and like it probably would have been good to just get the cruise win done but whatever he wins Cruise loses Cruise doesn't have an Oscar Danny
[01:35:29] Lewis Danny Day-Lewis Dan Lewis sorry Ben has no please let's show some respect Tom Cruise has no Oscars no nominations my left foot has that incredible Miramax poster because like the painted post that looks like a stainless UK posters are like the stained-glass painted poster and then
[01:35:48] there's the Miramax one they put out later where it's just fucking Daniel Day-Lewis is headshot it's him with like long hair looking super handsome smiling and then Brenda Fricker in the background like standing with her arms up like victory and it's in no way
[01:36:05] representative of how he looks in that movie or what the five of them look it was a big deal I don't know I mean it's not a movie I love Fricker is incredible in it though she is such a deserving winner anyway born of the foot relies
[01:36:20] number number one of the box office number two is a buddy comedy buddy cop movie mm-hmm kind of a classic of the genre I would say 89 it's kind of a classic of the genre you know it's no lethal weapon in terms of a success or
[01:36:39] whatever but like it's a pretty big hit that gets pretty good reviews with two big stars and I just feel like it's one of those you know it's a good buddy cop movie it's very very energetic so their cops did it get a sequel no interesting
[01:36:55] should have it's not tango in cash it is tango okay it is tango in cash it sure is yeah yeah I think a very troubled production but a pretty watchable movie yeah great Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell SV okay their rival detectives
[01:37:17] but they got to work together because Jack Palance frames one of them for murder I can't remember which one or maybe both of them maybe they're both in the same movie and Stallone's like the button-down one he's got glasses in this Stallone is the nerd he's tango
[01:37:32] and Kurt is the cowboy and he is cash and Terry Hatcher is in it and it's pretty good and it's directed by that Russian guy who like made all these you know big Russian movies and then Andre Hollywood stuff country loves ski yes
[01:37:52] it's also just I mean it's the perfect movie for a buddy cop move tango and cash yeah these two guys it's I believe it's the last film of the 80s like if he gets the last film released in the 80s oh really it's December 22nd 1999
[01:38:07] sorry like it's like that was it goodbye tango and cash is yours yeah and then number three at the box office Griff is another cop drama but it's a serious cop drama okay it's a serious cop drama from 1989 underrated it was a serious cop drama in my opinion
[01:38:26] directed by kind of an arty director hmm big star big star crooked crooked cop drama based on a real story just now it's one of those big stars though that everyone forgets is a big star but he really was 80s and 90s he
[01:38:46] was a big star you struggle with him I feel like I feel like I've seen a lot of him in the past oh okay struggled with other of his others of his movies and box in the box office of guessing them
[01:38:57] yeah but you don't know what my opinion on the man is I don't know maybe you love him I can't remember I think you like him hmm he's a bit of a silver fox if it was pointing at his head yes you
[01:39:12] know he's a silver fox he was a big star of the 80s and 90s I struggle to remember it's not a it's not a Clint no not Clint no no right I'm trying to guess a silver fox in the 80s and 90s
[01:39:26] really struggling if it keeps pulling at his hair I always got good hair is it um I mean I don't know the movie but are you talking about now I can't remember pretty woman guy it's Richard gear yourself yes I am I am talking about
[01:39:42] Richard gear what's your opinion on Richard gear Griffin okay I feel like you haven't seen the good gears no I haven't shifted into the right gear I mean I love days of heaven days of heavens maybe one of my 10 favorite movies ever yeah and he's
[01:40:00] I generally struggle with gear a little bit okay this is a crooked cop drama with Richard gear and I just feel like I'm not gonna pull the fucking name neutral on gear I just had to get that out yeah it's been great great great 200
[01:40:13] comedy points great well done all right it's got a very generic name it's a Mike Figgis film and it's great internal affairs right right right and it also features Adam Garcia Nancy Travis Laurie Metcalf and Billy Baldwin Wow and it's a totally solid cop movie
[01:40:31] but it's you know he's just got a lot of movies where you're like oh sure yeah that's it okay he was plugging along post like pretty woman an officer and a gentleman American gigolo like that's his like you know booming time it's a
[01:40:46] thing that doesn't exist anymore where it's like Richard gear is an a-list leading man with him at the front of your picture you can guarantee it will open to eight million dollars and end up right 32 domestic like that watch it on HBO and random viable model you
[01:41:01] didn't have to be a fucking half a billion dollar guy absolutely he razzle-dazzle them later though he did he did in fact razzle-dazzle them later god you're right he made so many goddamn movies I'm just looking at his he's
[01:41:16] made a lot of good movies and a lot of nothing movies um number four at the box office Griffin is a film directed by a man you just in on this episode invoked as a director I invoked this director you invoke this director he
[01:41:29] directed this film but he's also in it it's a black comedy and he's on the poster like he's dreaming up the movie it's it's it's worth the roses it's the war of the roses directed by Danny Dorito it's one of my favorite poster
[01:41:43] layouts ever because it's Douglas and Turner in bed and then Davido's at the bottom of the poster like indicating up I think I feel like he's got a cigar in one hand he's he's got a cigarette or a cigar or something and rice but it's a
[01:41:56] cigarette and there's smoke coming out of it and the picture is forming from the smoke right it's like he's created it out of his cigarette well he is the director of the picture yes I do like though it's one of the only posters that
[01:42:10] it feels like is physicalizing the idea of like Danny Davido presents here you are these two fucks are mad at each other here comes my short movie it's a good movie it's a very dark comedy have you seen the war of the roses it's it's
[01:42:29] oh I think you would love that movie you'd like it okay yeah we've talked about this though we're like Davido was one of the only guys who was able it has been able to make pitch black comedies into like major hits and then it dropped
[01:42:45] off for him but he had a couple in a row where it was just like how was that a career man yeah like first first him starring and then him directing and then he's just also in it as basically Danny Davido yeah it's such a funny career
[01:42:58] yeah I love the man now number five is a cult movie I would say okay not a huge hit but like one a huge cable hit like a huge tail on this movie this was a real fun monster movie of the 90s that
[01:43:16] just whatever I guess played on VHS forever got a bunch of 80s my sequels okay get sequels in the 90s like video sequels right it gets video sequels it's a horror movie or is it a yeah but it's like a comic horror movie like it's
[01:43:32] like a fun monster movie or it's a monster movie yes is the monster the title no what the monster is making is the title what the monster is making is the title film also stars my favorite actor alive oh is this tremors it's
[01:43:54] tremors oh I love tremors tremors is great what the monster is making I guess that's very tricky they're making right but the bacon gave it away to me yeah Kevin Bacon in tremors and it's one of those classic Kevin Bacon things
[01:44:12] where he's like what the fuck I make a movie it's good yeah it's fun yeah it comes out everyone ignores it and then five years later everyone's coming up to me being like you know what's great is tremor yeah he's like well I didn't
[01:44:26] hear that in 1990 that it was great like where were you then it's like the classic Kevin Bacon situation anytime he leads a movie people later watch it on tape and are like yeah that was good yeah why didn't I see that in the
[01:44:42] theater yeah it's wild it's also fucking Ron Underwood one of the wildest careers that's his first movie then he makes city slickers which is a huge fucking hit but you would not expect that he's the guy hired to do that off of tremors
[01:44:57] then he does hearts and souls the weird Robert Downey jr. ghost rom-com right serious comedy right right speechless which is that do well that new no no souls yeah I don't know I know definitely not speechless is what Diane Keaton no Michael Keaton sir it's Michael Keaton
[01:45:15] and Gia Davis the poster is just their lips which is like you're like but you did have the two most distinctive sets of lips of the early 90s it was you had some good yeah good lips that's true it's a good point it's like fair enough
[01:45:27] but that's I think they're both speech writers for rival political campaigns then he makes mighty Joe Young yes right he makes my need to make monster gorilla you know right the fucking King Kong rip rip off he does Pluto Nash Oh God sure
[01:45:44] notorious disaster and then his final film ever is in the mix which we all remember as the usher Chaz Palminteri crime comedy of 2005 absolutely Thanksgiving smash huge you forget Griffin that now he's working in the TV movie realm he made a movie called Santa baby starring Jenna
[01:46:05] McCarthy in which she plays Santa and mrs. Claus's daughter and then there was a sequel called Santa baby to colon Christmas maybe he's he's made like six Paul Sorvino plays Santa baby and he plays Santa in these movies holiday and
[01:46:22] handcuffs deck the halls he does a lot of Christmas TV movies it's also wild that like bacon does tremors people are like is this low rent for Kevin Bacon to be doing this movie it does not hit it grows in popularity years later they do
[01:46:37] fucking eight sequels right direct-to- video and cable and then they're like we're ready to properly reboot tremors we're doing a proper tremors TV series Kevin Bacon is coming back and people are like fuck they shoot a pilot doesn't get picked up now I'm about to change my
[01:46:55] background to Paul Sorvino is Santa Claus and Santa baby to Christmas maybe please okay enjoy Wow what do we think that's not that's not my vision of Santa that's not your Santa looks a little rough he looks he looks haggard he just kind of he looks
[01:47:14] he looks like Francis Ford Coppola like he just looks like I'm not getting Santa I'm sorry there's another picture I have to do this again it's that good this one's even worse I'm sorry Paul I truly respect you as an actor I think you're so great
[01:47:29] but why did you play Santa when you just were gonna look so tired all the time grumpy is who's Mrs. Claus it's a good question I'm not sure I'm not sure I don't know I don't know if Santa is really gonna be a good Santa there's
[01:47:48] only one way for me to find out Santa baby to Christmas maybe Mrs. Claus is played by Lynn Griffin hey from Black Christmas Wow okay enough yeah anyway so that's the box office game Griffin you've also got always Steven Spielberg's always you have steel magnolias still
[01:48:10] chugging along along with driving Miss Magnolias still make noise is way better though the Little Mermaid yeah and yeah and back to the future part two still sticking around a couple of blind check films of past hanging on the outskirts that 10 yeah the only new movie this week
[01:48:28] is tremors and of course sweetie if you live in whatever the other side or wherever this and tremors tremors wasn't even succeeding with a January release yeah it's not even succeeding against fucking the third week of internal affairs or whatever yeah that's why it's
[01:48:42] like eat a toilet bacon I'm still here right yeah as for you thank you so much for coming back on the show thank you yes thanks for having me you're you're one of a group of people who have recently told me how much you appreciate
[01:48:57] the show being long because it helped you kill time while doing long things right you listen to it on a road trip yes and I probably will do it I think honestly maybe we listened to it on the way home
[01:49:10] or on the way to our wedding but I think we'll also listen to it on the way to Thanksgiving which is a long road trip right you were like it helps because we can like get the whole road trip done in only three blank check episodes yes I
[01:49:23] was like a full day 24 hours on the road no it is it's it's like okay we won't even be done with this episode by the time we're there so that that's right I mean if it's if it's a bewitched you won't it's a great Joshua Tree Palm
[01:49:40] Springs Drive right a final season of search party we're recording this a little advanced I don't know if it's about to premiere if it's just premiered this episode is coming out January 16th so I think it will have just premiered just premiered okay yes so check it out
[01:49:57] on HBO is it week to week or is it all dropping at once it's all dropping at once Wow I will say like as I was talking about earlier the thing I love that you and Charles do where you write down the things that you have to write
[01:50:09] past rather than like going for the obvious a to b sort of plotting yeah it makes it difficult I would imagine when you're ending a show to figure out how to actually end it because you've set up this standard where anything that feels
[01:50:22] like it should be the end of another show you can get past that I mean said I know how the season ends and it's insane and you actually have come up with the thing that you cannot write I'm very impressed you know God
[01:50:34] someone someone said to me once like when you when you end this show you have to be like I can't believe they went there and that really stuck I think yeah okay yeah I am I am deeply impressed and I can't wait to watch the
[01:50:51] whole thing oh man same so excited super excited oh yeah and everyone watch yeah everyone watch everyone everyone watch everyone watch every single one of you and I want to thank everyone for listening and tell them to please remember to rate review and subscribe
[01:51:10] thank you to Marie Barty for our social media Joe Bowen Pat rounds for artwork AJ McKeon and Alex Baron for editing Nicolai Riano and JJ Bursch for our research Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Novel for Athena and I'm sure you can listen their new album
[01:51:28] extremely loud incredibly online wherever albums are found these days go to blankies I read that confer some real nerdy shit and you can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where we cover franchises and right now we are ghost
[01:51:46] busting we are in fact we are now singos the family that bus together hey if you haven't signed up for the patreon we're actually every release day we'll also be offering from our archive the Marvel commentary series so you can check out past episodes if you so this
[01:52:06] is now yeah our fourth year of the patreon and going forward we're gonna start taking things out from behind the paywall after three years so on the first 11th and 21st of every month if you're already a patreon subscriber you're gonna get new episodes if you're
[01:52:23] not you can go to our patreon page and those episodes from three years earlier there'll be a new one dropped every 10 days that will unlock from behind the wall yeah so check it out there's some fun stuff Marvel movies guys yeah you can listen to three-year-old Marvel
[01:52:40] commentaries including the one where on spider-man home I say wouldn't just be cool if Marvel like didn't release a movie for 18 months and then the world ended they couldn't I'm sure didn't they I'm sure they're gonna do it next week for an angel at my table who's the
[01:52:57] guest or is that the movie okay then and and as always I'm completely blinking on the finger the boss baby like sweetie I don't know yeah she does she like this she's a she waggles