Speaker 1: What do you identify as freedom, beauty, truth or love.
Speaker 1: I think obviously I give beauty. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, come freedom, beauty, truth, and come loos.
Speaker 1: Love is a many splendid thing. Love lifts us up
Speaker 1: where we belong. All you need is love. But don't
Speaker 1: stop that together. It's honestly, I want to give Silky
Speaker 1: Nut mcganash half man, half woman drag and do both
Speaker 1: parts like I know I could. UM. That song I
Speaker 1: think perfectly encapsulates what is the Elephant Love Medley? The
Speaker 1: Elephant Love Medley, which is not a song but a
Speaker 1: mash up of songs UM performance by Nicole Kim and
Speaker 1: Ewan McGregor to perfection. Um. I think that song perfectly
Speaker 1: encapsulates today's discussion topic, Basil Lerman, the Basilerman cinematic universe, UM,
Speaker 1: and everything that comes with the beer. Sorry if you will, Yes,
Speaker 1: the territory of one of the most maximalist utters of
Speaker 1: our generation. Um, who is not gay for some reason.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that. Yeah, we're going to be
Speaker 1: discussing bases and you know he would say, which we
Speaker 1: have not seen all of but um, like some of
Speaker 1: Basilerman's movies have been very important to me, but I
Speaker 1: actually am not as aware of a lot of his
Speaker 1: other works. So today I'm a bit more of the
Speaker 1: virgin in this scenario, and we will be exploring basist
Speaker 1: films from kind of his oldest to his most recent,
Speaker 1: because this is like a virgin the show where we
Speaker 1: give yesterday's pop culture today's takes, I'm ros damn you,
Speaker 1: and I'm fran Toronto Brock a kiss on the hand,
Speaker 1: maybe Continental, you know Rose, it doesn't matter if you
Speaker 1: love them or Capital th That's pretty good, I have
Speaker 1: to say, Like, as someone who is just coming off
Speaker 1: the high of being at the New York Chromatic Ball,
Speaker 1: I forgot that Gaga are still okay. Let's but let's
Speaker 1: let's okay. I have a bone to pick before you
Speaker 1: even get into it. It was not the New York
Speaker 1: CHROMATICA Ball. It was the New Jersey CHROMATICA Ball. Okay, Baby, Baby, Baby,
Speaker 1: I don't care how many times it's a New York
Speaker 1: city on her tour dates. It was in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: It was in Jersey, and she reminded us many times
Speaker 1: that it was Jersey. That was honestly, like, one of
Speaker 1: my biggest critiques was that she said Jersey just way
Speaker 1: too many times. Well it's better than if she said, Hey,
Speaker 1: New York City and you're like, we're in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: But it was mostly New Yorkers and obviously she picked
Speaker 1: that venue. That's not where you were geographically. Okay, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm just to get right into the recap. I have
Speaker 1: to say, like she she clearly like googled Jersey, like
Speaker 1: right before the show, because you know, the best parts
Speaker 1: of like a Gaga show is like her ad libbing,
Speaker 1: and one of her ad libs was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I would not say that that's the best
Speaker 1: part of a Gaga show. No, it was definitely my
Speaker 1: favorite and most memorable. The most memorable parts of the
Speaker 1: show for me was her ad libbing and she was like,
Speaker 1: she was like, you know, I love to come to
Speaker 1: Jersey and look at the beautiful boardwalks here. It was
Speaker 1: like have you had you seen her before? No, this
Speaker 1: was my first time seeing Gaga. I uh, I felt
Speaker 1: spiritually ready for it. I do wish. One of my
Speaker 1: biggest regrets is that I didn't see the Fame Monster tour.
Speaker 1: I wish more than anything have seen that. But I
Speaker 1: figured this was kind of I got really cheap tickets
Speaker 1: for the pit and I was like, this is my
Speaker 1: time now, UM to see Gaga, Like I'm ready for this,
Speaker 1: and I loved um Chromatica. I love that album and
Speaker 1: so I was like, this is the album that I
Speaker 1: think is is worth seeing it for. Um, what was
Speaker 1: your favorite performance? Okay, well she started out chromatical Ball
Speaker 1: spoilers for those listening. She started out with three throwbacks,
Speaker 1: so she she did Bad Romance, poker Face, and justin List,
Speaker 1: none of which she should be doing live. I did, like,
Speaker 1: I strongly feel that we don't need to see them
Speaker 1: anymore and I would rather I have her have like
Speaker 1: put total pop songs and totally totally disagree, but you know,
Speaker 1: we are different little monsters and that's okay that that
Speaker 1: was my favorite part of the show actually, um, because
Speaker 1: she did it as a park and bark. She literally
Speaker 1: stood on this rotating platform and a huge structural costume
Speaker 1: that was like disassembled by her dancers and like kept
Speaker 1: doing these different views. But she did all of these
Speaker 1: songs just standing and singing, and it was because she's
Speaker 1: done them like some billions. But I think that it
Speaker 1: was a very compelling way to make us all pay
Speaker 1: attention to listening to songs that we had heard before,
Speaker 1: because she put vocal spins on it that I had
Speaker 1: never heard before. I think it was sonically very interesting.
Speaker 1: We were focusing on the back backup dancers and the visuals,
Speaker 1: so I did really really love those and as someone
Speaker 1: who has never been to a Goga performance before, I
Speaker 1: wanted to see you know, I get that part of it.
Speaker 1: I just wish she felt liberated from doing their biggest
Speaker 1: hits because like we've all seen the super Bowl, Like
Speaker 1: we've all seen the iconic performances of those songs, and
Speaker 1: I just don't think there's that much more to be
Speaker 1: gleaned from seeing them live, especially when, like with something
Speaker 1: like Chromatica, I think there's other parts of her discography
Speaker 1: that are more thematically relevant to that album that could
Speaker 1: have used new life breathed into them for this tour specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, she does no art pop in this tour
Speaker 1: at all, and I would have loved to see some
Speaker 1: art pops. I thought that. I also was kind of
Speaker 1: not that I haven't been at the show, but I've
Speaker 1: also like, I know what the set list is, like
Speaker 1: I've watched the videos, you know, I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the parts that were most memorable to me and most breathtaking.
Speaker 1: We're definitely just the visuals in general. The show started
Speaker 1: out with a very abstract film. A lot of the
Speaker 1: graphics were in black and white. Um, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've been seeing them all over Twitter. But it's just
Speaker 1: really well done projection work that is not trying too hard.
Speaker 1: That the kind of stuff that she does really well
Speaker 1: or it's like the A V component is a way
Speaker 1: is next level. Yeah, and her, you know, I would
Speaker 1: say some of her costumes were not amazing, but some
Speaker 1: of them were phenomenal, like the alien kind of mask
Speaker 1: get up that we all saw. She performed shallow in that,
Speaker 1: which I thought was so like incredible, Like she did
Speaker 1: her sitting at the piano and doing her ballads, which
Speaker 1: you and I was a glaring omission from the ballad
Speaker 1: set list, but the ballads were another path. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought it was unacceptable. That's maybe my all time fave
Speaker 1: UM Gaga song I want her to do Speechless live again.
Speaker 1: Speechless is in my top ten of Gaga. I think
Speaker 1: you know I was talking about this is someone this weekend,
Speaker 1: we need to do a Gaga episode. I would love to.
Speaker 1: I have so much to say to her, and she
Speaker 1: was so formative to both of our upbringings, and I
Speaker 1: would love to hear about how that all comes first
Speaker 1: full circle. And I just want to warn the Little
Speaker 1: Monster virgins that, like we will when we eventually do
Speaker 1: a Gaga episode, we will not go easy on her.
Speaker 1: We will not hold her hand um I. As as
Speaker 1: I may have said before, like part of my standing
Speaker 1: her and that's why I'm being critical, even like not
Speaker 1: having seen the show, part of my standing her is
Speaker 1: like I want her to be the best she can be,
Speaker 1: and I love her so much. I know that she
Speaker 1: has that in her, so I really take her to
Speaker 1: task when I think she does stupid disappointing things, and
Speaker 1: that I think is like healthy stand um right, Like
Speaker 1: any any music artist, if you want to label yourself
Speaker 1: as a stand stand like, you can do so by
Speaker 1: not um uh just patently agreeing with and standing everything
Speaker 1: the artist does without critique, like you know, kind of.
Speaker 1: I to my friend Hunter Abrahams is like the biggest
Speaker 1: little Monster I know, and is in a Little Monster
Speaker 1: fandom group chat with the like dozens of people, if
Speaker 1: you know. But they're a nazing and they rented a
Speaker 1: party bus um and filled it with little monsters to
Speaker 1: to head to the MetLife Stadium, and I was a
Speaker 1: little weary effort because I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: little monsters are kind of like a really annoying fan base,
Speaker 1: Like what am I going to deal with? But like
Speaker 1: everyone on the bus, much like you were very down
Speaker 1: to just like make fun of Gaga and and all
Speaker 1: the things that make it so easy to make fun
Speaker 1: of her and so fun. Kind of on the note
Speaker 1: of all this, of anyone is interested in some like
Speaker 1: extra reading on Gaga, there was a really good So
Speaker 1: Pitchfork does a thing and like I know, Pitchfork, like
Speaker 1: I roll um every Sunday they like revisit an older
Speaker 1: album and like do kind of an updated review of it.
Speaker 1: And this Sunday they released an art pop um review
Speaker 1: and it's actually really really well written. What did they say?
Speaker 1: And um kind of a lot of things that all
Speaker 1: of us say about art pop, which is like, you know,
Speaker 1: very much placing it at the time in her career
Speaker 1: that was like really to multuous because she had like
Speaker 1: suffered an injury, she was changing management. Um that it's
Speaker 1: like a very flawed album. But like received a lot
Speaker 1: of unfair critique and also fair critique because she did
Speaker 1: like really fucked up stuff like working with r Kelly
Speaker 1: even though everyone knew he was, you know, a fucking abuser,
Speaker 1: or deciding that she wanted to be the next I mean,
Speaker 1: this wasn't sucked up per se, but just like a
Speaker 1: polarizing thing when she was like, I'm the next Marina
Speaker 1: Abramovich and I am a performance artist. I'm a helicopter
Speaker 1: right now, like you know what I mean? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, and this review I think does a really
Speaker 1: good job of placing all of the context of like
Speaker 1: what she was trying to do with art pop, like
Speaker 1: bringing fine art into a you know, pop landscape. So
Speaker 1: I definitely suggest reading that. I also did write something
Speaker 1: for Paper a couple of years ago, went after Gaga
Speaker 1: tweeted that she didn't remember art pop was really disappointing. Um,
Speaker 1: I wrote something for paper that's, like I think, called
Speaker 1: in defense of art pop, so that I would. I
Speaker 1: think it's actually one of the better things I've one
Speaker 1: of the few pieces of writing you would stand the
Speaker 1: writing of one are the few pieces of journalism that
Speaker 1: I stand behind. Um, So go give that a read.
Speaker 1: If you're interested, are you a pro jewels and drugs,
Speaker 1: little monster or a anti Okay, just wanted to clarify. Um,
Speaker 1: I I have to say, you know, in the making
Speaker 1: fun of Gaga of it All, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: my favorite parts were like the ad living Gaga is
Speaker 1: on autopilot up there, like she is realizing things. Bottom Yeah,
Speaker 1: She's yes, that's exactly what it's giving. She's she's had
Speaker 1: a full of that, and she's like realizing things like
Speaker 1: as she says them. My friend Dakota, who I went
Speaker 1: to the ball with, she was like, it sounds it
Speaker 1: sounds like the way the way she talks is like
Speaker 1: I message like prediction, text, like every word, every word
Speaker 1: like that comes after like it is like just happening
Speaker 1: in her mind as it as it occurs to her,
Speaker 1: because she speaks kind of she speaks kind of slowly
Speaker 1: but with a lot of conviction. Like, um there was
Speaker 1: this one moment where she was basically trying to introduce
Speaker 1: Edge of Glory, which was so good, and she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always wanted to shoot a music video
Speaker 1: on a New York street fire escape, and and I
Speaker 1: was like, what are you saying? Like who are you?
Speaker 1: She's a fucking she's There was another there's another moment
Speaker 1: where she was like, she had a really beautiful story
Speaker 1: about Tony Bennett. She's like, Tony used to be my neighbor.
Speaker 1: Well he still is kind of And I was like,
Speaker 1: what are you? Why don't you even Or the moment
Speaker 1: that has already gone viral on Twitter where she was
Speaker 1: when she was um, when she was like, and they
Speaker 1: better not come for gay marriage, Am I right? Queens?
Speaker 1: And I was like, God, that's like you've been saying
Speaker 1: that for a decade. Gaga, like that is a decade
Speaker 1: old take. Um, speaking of liftings, I just I want
Speaker 1: to I want to spend thirty seconds on this as
Speaker 1: a necessary p s A to anyone listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast to not make the same mistake I made of
Speaker 1: watching the beginning of Secret Celebrity Drag Race Celebrity in quotes,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that that was yeah. Um, well
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you that it really is not
Speaker 1: a thing. Um, it was the greatest waste of my time.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just watched it because I needed
Speaker 1: something to watch with my trade this weekend. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I, I mean I had some I had
Speaker 1: some trade imported this this weekend, and you watched drag
Speaker 1: Race with them. I watched Secret Celebrity drag Race because
Speaker 1: that's what girl, this was. I mean, I don't even
Speaker 1: need to say it. I can only blame myself, but like, truly,
Speaker 1: truly I want that time back in my life and
Speaker 1: and and it is so cringe and such an insult
Speaker 1: to the drag Race stage. Sorry, like I do feel
Speaker 1: like I that the drag race stage deserves more than that. Um,
Speaker 1: And I I know I don't think that's what I
Speaker 1: That's why I emphasized because I was like, I know
Speaker 1: Rose disagrees with me on this, but um, all that
Speaker 1: is to say is that all the celebrities that are
Speaker 1: doing lip sync battle, which is the heterosexual rip of
Speaker 1: drag race that you know, gets probably more viral videos
Speaker 1: than drag Race, all those girls should be doing I
Speaker 1: have watched that Tom Holland video. Man, incredible, it's so incredible.
Speaker 1: But Tom Holland and Hathaway, the rock Queen Latifa, all
Speaker 1: those girls, they should be doing Secret Celebrity drag Race
Speaker 1: instead of lip sync battle, because that's the thing is like,
Speaker 1: like like even though drag Race is as huge as
Speaker 1: it is, they still cannot get real celebrities to I guess,
Speaker 1: like quote unquote Pete on it. Yeah, and that's really disappointing, honestly,
Speaker 1: but like I don't know anyways, that's all I wanted
Speaker 1: to say. Please please, please do not watch Secret Celebrity
Speaker 1: Drag Race. Um, okay. One thing that I I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you're giving that recommendation because I listened to another
Speaker 1: recommendation of yours this weekend, but it wasn't a negative one.
Speaker 1: It was a positive one. So you were really audamantly
Speaker 1: trying to get me to watch the new League of
Speaker 1: their Own series on Amazon. I was very resistant because
Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna make some people mad, but I
Speaker 1: don't really like Abby Jacobson. I kind of I just
Speaker 1: kind of like find her whole thing like off putting.
Speaker 1: I'm like, not really a big broad City fan. Your
Speaker 1: explanation made sense. You're not a girl who enjoys cringe
Speaker 1: core like that's not and and I just think that
Speaker 1: she kind of plays the same character over and over again,
Speaker 1: which is and she definitely does in this show. But
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I moved past that because I watched
Speaker 1: the first two episodes and I actually really liked it,
Speaker 1: and I certainly I feel the same way about Abby
Speaker 1: Jacobson that I did before with like I do still
Speaker 1: find her annoying, but even though she is the star
Speaker 1: of the show and I guess also wrote it and
Speaker 1: created it, there's so many other characters to like fall
Speaker 1: in love with, and caper Land's amazing. Darcy Cardon is
Speaker 1: such a fucking legend. I I've never seen a league
Speaker 1: of their own in full. It was like on TV
Speaker 1: a lot when we were kids, and so I've seen
Speaker 1: parts of it, but I've never watched the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but I don't recommend it. It's too long, it drags on,
Speaker 1: it's like slow. And also the original really thinks that,
Speaker 1: like the coach Tom Hanks is like the most interesting
Speaker 1: character in the movie, and he's not, you know, but um,
Speaker 1: I know that the movie is kind of like queer
Speaker 1: Canon because of like Madonna and Rosie and like the
Speaker 1: like gay like undertones of it all. And I think
Speaker 1: part of what's great about this reboot is that, like
Speaker 1: the undertones are not undertoning, they are overtoning every character,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they're all gay, like I mean spoilers for
Speaker 1: the first episode, Like I screamed when Darcy and an
Speaker 1: Abby made up the end of the episode when she
Speaker 1: and when she goes I thought so and just walks out,
Speaker 1: and then I screamed again. And at the end of
Speaker 1: episode two, um, when there's another same sex makeup, I
Speaker 1: hope that that happens at the end of like every
Speaker 1: episode just ends with kissing. It's really it's a really
Speaker 1: satisfying show. I I hesitated to put it in the
Speaker 1: feel good category because I don't want it to get
Speaker 1: like ted lassoed, Like I think it's more complex than that.
Speaker 1: But like the show gives you all of these payoffs
Speaker 1: that are just reminiscent of that era of movies. But
Speaker 1: it's also like I think it's also earned because there
Speaker 1: is a lot of tension and like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of funked up stuff that happens, um in terms of
Speaker 1: like these women experiencing massaw genine and racism and sexism
Speaker 1: and you know, like queer faphobia. Um so when those
Speaker 1: like joyful moments do happen, like I think my favorite
Speaker 1: moment in the first episode is when Abby Jacobson, Darcy
Speaker 1: Carden and the other woman just enter the field and
Speaker 1: see everyone playing, and like they all like kind of
Speaker 1: tear up because they've never experienced that before. And that
Speaker 1: is so like it's like actually kind of moving, and
Speaker 1: so those moments feel really earned, and it's not like
Speaker 1: it's not just like like kind of masturbatory like woke rebooting,
Speaker 1: and it's not traumapore and it's like kind of like
Speaker 1: a good a good marriage of like acknowledging the flaws
Speaker 1: of our history and of probably like the original source
Speaker 1: material and correcting them. The lesbian haircut scene girl, like
Speaker 1: it was so like the first episode. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: so in the canon of like the L word style
Speaker 1: lesbian haircut scenes. Like it's so hot, Like the show
Speaker 1: is hot, and like Robert Dress, who plays Lube, is
Speaker 1: so hot. Like everyone's hot. Everyone's hot. Also, caper Land
Speaker 1: like should become one of the most famous people in
Speaker 1: the world. I totally agree. Oh my god, you need
Speaker 1: you need to listen to um. In terms of like
Speaker 1: other things that I kind of maybe made you consume
Speaker 1: this week, the leaked Kim Petris album. Yeah, I I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't really mind. You know, It's like I
Speaker 1: listened to like half of it, which took about seven minutes,
Speaker 1: because they're like a minute fifty and you know, like
Speaker 1: here's the thing. It's like perfectly fine pop music, and
Speaker 1: like that's the thing with Kim Petris is like if
Speaker 1: there wasn't all this baggage with Kim Petris, I would
Speaker 1: like listen to it and be like cool, I'm like
Speaker 1: glad this exists. This is like perfectly good pop music.
Speaker 1: And like even even if it's not like her problematically
Speaker 1: working with Dr Luke. Now, it's like the fact that
Speaker 1: this album was never released and like you can only
Speaker 1: listen to leaks of it, and it's like, why couldn't
Speaker 1: this album just come out? Like it's it's really baffling,
Speaker 1: and it does suck that there always has to be
Speaker 1: something with her, because the thing is like she should
Speaker 1: be a bigger than she is, Like she makes very good,
Speaker 1: very consumable pop music like this and very tiktoki like
Speaker 1: and and and truly like at this point, the biggest
Speaker 1: moment of her career was when Coconuts was a sound
Speaker 1: on TikTok and like, but like still nothing really came
Speaker 1: of that, when for a lot of other artists, those
Speaker 1: are the kinds of things that break them out, and
Speaker 1: like she has a song, a song with Paris Hilton
Speaker 1: on this album and it's just good, Like like that
Speaker 1: Paris Hilton song is pretty good. It's it's fine. So
Speaker 1: like when you're thinking about all that, like all the
Speaker 1: why of it, it always leads you back to like, well,
Speaker 1: there has to be some reason that this girl is
Speaker 1: not breaking out in the way that she should be,
Speaker 1: and all roads lead back to Dr Luke in one
Speaker 1: way or another. M hmmm, yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: that the drama surrounding this league is interesting for the
Speaker 1: virgins um. There's not a ton of clarity about what
Speaker 1: exactly went down. But leading up to the release of
Speaker 1: this album Problematique, Kim has you know, been crying on
Speaker 1: Instagram stories about how her label won't let her release it,
Speaker 1: how she wants to quit because the album is in limbo.
Speaker 1: Apparently it's been officially scrapped, and in a deleted tweet,
Speaker 1: Kim said, you know the album scraped, so go listen
Speaker 1: to the league, like I don't care, Like, did you
Speaker 1: see her t talk where she was like, thanks for
Speaker 1: getting my album on the top of the leak charts.
Speaker 1: M I've got like the Number one League. Like that
Speaker 1: stuff is funny, and like I appreciate that it's it
Speaker 1: shows that like she has this like good sense of
Speaker 1: humor and like she has all the components to be
Speaker 1: you are really successful and compelling pop star. But like,
Speaker 1: I know, the thing with Kim is, like I know
Speaker 1: the odds are stacked against her because she's trans, and
Speaker 1: like I'm sure that a lot of what's going on
Speaker 1: no stems from probably like one bad decision that she
Speaker 1: made with like signing the wrong contract at some point
Speaker 1: in her career, and that sucks that it will like
Speaker 1: haunt her forever. Yeah, you know, I think that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of nuance to this conversation, right because Dr
Speaker 1: Luke doesn't just produce Kim's music. He produces a lot
Speaker 1: of dojo songs like Nikki Um, like a lot of
Speaker 1: like music artists that we like consume and have no
Speaker 1: problem consuming. And I do think sometimes that Kim is
Speaker 1: held under disproportionate scrutiny. She should be scrutinized, right um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time I think that it's sometimes
Speaker 1: a little bizarre. I I'm not sure I always buy
Speaker 1: the you know, I'm trans and so the odds are
Speaker 1: stacked against me, excuse me, because they're just like tons
Speaker 1: of marginalized people that um can do what they do without,
Speaker 1: you know, signing to known abusers. But also she maybe yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that, you know, I I think at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I don't really care about
Speaker 1: the mistakes she made in her past. And I also
Speaker 1: don't care if the music I'm currently listening to is
Speaker 1: produced by Dr Luke because Dr Luke makes some fucking hits. Um,
Speaker 1: This Household is a pro turn Off the Light household.
Speaker 1: That is a perfect album. It is no skips. It
Speaker 1: is the best album of Kim's career. Listening to both
Speaker 1: of the Turn Off the Light albums like when When
Speaker 1: When Halloween comes around? Like I want to listen to those,
Speaker 1: like she's the only pop girlie who's made like spooky
Speaker 1: Halloween music. But anyways, I'm going to continue to listen
Speaker 1: to the League album. It's It's It's It's got some
Speaker 1: really I think the title track is really good, but
Speaker 1: there are some other hits on there. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: if it was on Spotify, sure might into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not easy to listen to it, so I won't
Speaker 1: And I want one thing before we wrap up the news.
Speaker 1: We have failed to mention that we are shutting down
Speaker 1: this podcast because Nympho Wars has returned, and so there's
Speaker 1: no reason for any other podcasts to exist, including point.
Speaker 1: So turn this off right now, go listen to Nympho Wars. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's been nice knowing you Rose listen. You and
Speaker 1: I have talked about my heart. Someone told me recently
Speaker 1: that that listened from dream Girls is their favorite Beyonce song.
Speaker 1: That's the wrong take. That's actually category. Like, I know
Speaker 1: we're the wrong take. I know we're supposed to say,
Speaker 1: like you know as Nicks, that like things are subjective
Speaker 1: and that like you know, are you are? Isn't eye
Speaker 1: of the Behold or whatever the funk, It's not. That's
Speaker 1: kind of wrong. That's wrong, um, And I feel like
Speaker 1: we'll have a lot of takes like that with today's
Speaker 1: discussion on Basi Lerman, which I think so as well.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, for the long term versions
Speaker 1: the people that have been with us since day one,
Speaker 1: bass has come up and a lot of our conversations
Speaker 1: just like here and there, we talk about Mulan Rouge,
Speaker 1: we talk about Romeo plus Juliette we talk about Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliet, I will continue to say the plus is
Speaker 1: simply how it is stylized. It's how it is stylized.
Speaker 1: It is, it is, it is not. This is not math.
Speaker 1: The math is not math. Here's the thing is that
Speaker 1: if I'm in a casual conversation and I say Romeo
Speaker 1: plus Juliet, they know immediately that I'm referring to the
Speaker 1: Basil Lerman version and not the ninety eight like versions.
Speaker 1: We'll see. That's why I say Basil Lerman's Romeo and Juliet. Right, well,
Speaker 1: that works too, And yet here I am saying Romeo
Speaker 1: plus Juli. Yet I refused to not say um but Rose.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I would love to know, like what
Speaker 1: your relationship is, too, bas because I feel like I've
Speaker 1: already talked about mine on the pod, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: what was your first baz or do you remember how
Speaker 1: you felt about the work. I think you know. I
Speaker 1: don't have as much of a relationship with his work
Speaker 1: on a large scale. I have a relationship with specifically
Speaker 1: two things he has made. I love Romeo and Juliet.
Speaker 1: It was a movie that I watched a lot as
Speaker 1: a kid was really formative for me. It's the It's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I, when I was in
Speaker 1: like fourth grade, went into my dad's like study and
Speaker 1: grabbed the complete work of William Shakespeare and read the
Speaker 1: entire thing. It's like one of the things that jump
Speaker 1: started my love of Shakespeare. And Mulan Rouge was the
Speaker 1: thing I was the most obsessed with for you know,
Speaker 1: like a solid year when I was a teenager. It's
Speaker 1: the reason why I was in love with you and McGregor.
Speaker 1: It helped me discover a lot of music through like
Speaker 1: all of the covers and in it. You know, like
Speaker 1: was very symbiotic with my love of musical theater obviously,
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was and is important to me. That
Speaker 1: being said, I never felt that huge of a desire
Speaker 1: to explore any of his other work because I think
Speaker 1: even then I realized the things I was drawn to
Speaker 1: in those movies were more of the story than the style.
Speaker 1: And I know from seeing some of his other projects
Speaker 1: that so much of what Basilorman does is about style substance.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of times very substantive, but sometimes
Speaker 1: the substances sacrificed. So what was your intro to bows
Speaker 1: Um similarly also had an obsession with Bass, spurred by
Speaker 1: Mulan Bruge, which I think was the conversation for a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, culture critics that year. It you know,
Speaker 1: won a lot of Oscars and all that jazz. But
Speaker 1: I just remember, and this is repeated, I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: the virgins, But like, I watched that movie and it
Speaker 1: was a huge unlocking um for me, my um. You know,
Speaker 1: the by neighbor of my friend at the cul de Sac,
Speaker 1: Mel showed it to us and corrupted me. And I
Speaker 1: was like, shout out to Mel, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this movie has escorts and faggots and like boysterousness and
Speaker 1: like murder, espionage, like promiscuity, like all of these things,
Speaker 1: so many scenes that are driven by sex as an engine.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so interesting. And but what
Speaker 1: I latched onto was just what you were talking about,
Speaker 1: which is that the stylistic world building that Bass does
Speaker 1: in almost all of his films that I is just
Speaker 1: very very very mighty. Any of my friends will tell
Speaker 1: you that I am a style over substance girl, like
Speaker 1: ascetic style. How it looks is like I'm very I'm
Speaker 1: It's my big weakness and I will overlook a lot
Speaker 1: of like quality control issues if it just looks really good. Um,
Speaker 1: It's like something that Justin and I always get to
Speaker 1: arguments about, actually, and I'm not proud of that, but
Speaker 1: it's just who I am, um, and I need both.
Speaker 1: I really like style. I like a lot of bas
Speaker 1: Arman style, and I think the projects of his that
Speaker 1: I like are the ones where there's as much substance
Speaker 1: as there is style, Like in Romeo and Juliet, it's
Speaker 1: literally Shakespeare like there is you know, the oldest love
Speaker 1: story ever told. You know, there is a lot there
Speaker 1: too who meet to the style, and the style works
Speaker 1: in reinterpreting it and making it accessible for a modern audience.
Speaker 1: And then kind of the same thing in Mulin Rouge,
Speaker 1: it's like a very classic It's it's Labo m It's
Speaker 1: like a very classic love story and the story works
Speaker 1: hand in hand with the style in a way that
Speaker 1: is like overwhelming in a good way. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: I think that when you are able to identify the
Speaker 1: stylistic through lines that make bases work his work, I
Speaker 1: think you kind of grow a new appreciation for what
Speaker 1: is a very consistent body of work, a very small
Speaker 1: body of work, to be honest, like, it's not a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff, but um, I don't know. That's kind
Speaker 1: of why I wanted to do an episode about it,
Speaker 1: and why I forced you in in in the good
Speaker 1: tradition of this show, forced you to watch Strictly Ballroom, which,
Speaker 1: just before we get into it, is the beginning of
Speaker 1: what Baths refers to as the Red Curtain Trilogy, which,
Speaker 1: like I have thoughts on but like um, the Red
Speaker 1: Curtain Trilogy is Strictly Ballroom, Romeo plus Juliette and Mulan Rush.
Speaker 1: What year did Strictly Ballroom come out? Strictly Ballroom is
Speaker 1: comedy um that Bas adapted from a play he wrote
Speaker 1: that I think was really successful in Australia. And that's something,
Speaker 1: honestly that's very important. Is that like, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, Bas is a fucking theater nerd, like
Speaker 1: a a completely hysterical and erratic and insane theater nerd. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think that informs a lot of his work,
Speaker 1: and Strictly Ballroom is the story of a ballroom dancing
Speaker 1: competitor who has not yet got the championship accolades that
Speaker 1: he's wanted, and his partner dumps out on him, and
Speaker 1: he's looking for someone to help him win the championship,
Speaker 1: and this woman named frayan like kind of falls into
Speaker 1: his orbit and she it's kind of the classic story
Speaker 1: of nerdy, ugly woman takes off her glasses and literally
Speaker 1: there's a scene where he literally takes out takes off
Speaker 1: her glasses. And then when I first I forgot that
Speaker 1: that there were movies in which that that was done
Speaker 1: in earnest because it's such a joke. Now it's a
Speaker 1: joke for a reason, because there are several movies in
Speaker 1: which it's done very earnestly. Yes, exactly, And she takes
Speaker 1: off her glasses and we discovered that she is but
Speaker 1: a gorgeous woman. And I love any movie that does that.
Speaker 1: But it is exactly, it's it's a fantasy. It is cliche,
Speaker 1: and honestly, Bass is kind of good at cliches sometimes,
Speaker 1: and I that's something that I appreciated about this movie.
Speaker 1: But I just love to know you like your naked reactions.
Speaker 1: You literally just watched it yesterday. I did just watch
Speaker 1: it yesterday. I hated it. I hated it. I hated
Speaker 1: it so much, all of it, all the way through
Speaker 1: the whole, the whole No, I watched the whole thing. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's only an hour and a half, you know, I
Speaker 1: knew the whole time. I was like, okay, this will
Speaker 1: this too shall pass um. It was the one thing
Speaker 1: it did was give me such a clear understanding of
Speaker 1: bass style, because you see the things that he does
Speaker 1: on a macro scale now being done on a micro scale,
Speaker 1: and you realize his artistic impulses have always been there.
Speaker 1: The film is so frenetic and gaudy and maximalist. No
Speaker 1: single shot is longer than like four seconds. There's so
Speaker 1: many close ups. He really revels in kind of ugliness
Speaker 1: as much as he revels in beauty. And I do
Speaker 1: think that this world that he's looking at, this world
Speaker 1: of competitive ballroom dancing, is a really good place to
Speaker 1: find that. Unfortunately, I just didn't like it. I just
Speaker 1: thought it was so grading, and I didn't like any
Speaker 1: of the characters. You didn't like, you didn't like Fran.
Speaker 1: I did not like fran. I thought she was pasthetic.
Speaker 1: That's okay, So I'm sorry to like totally sideswipe you.
Speaker 1: But this is my life story. This is a biopic.
Speaker 1: I at least my life rights. Two baths in nine
Speaker 1: two I was one year old and I said, bas,
Speaker 1: here are my life rights. Please adapt my story into
Speaker 1: a film, and this is the film that he made,
Speaker 1: and so you are truly coming for me because I
Speaker 1: am fran I can absolutely see how this is the
Speaker 1: kind of movie that a director makes that makes the
Speaker 1: industry pay attention to them and say, oh, what if
Speaker 1: we gave this person a ton of money so they
Speaker 1: could do this on a bigger scale. And truly, like,
Speaker 1: having most recently seen Elvis, I see the direct through
Speaker 1: line from this movie to Elvis and how in a
Speaker 1: way they are the same movie, just with a lot
Speaker 1: of different money and time between them and films totally
Speaker 1: but strictly, strictly Ballroom. I had totally problems with it.
Speaker 1: I was like at the beginning, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: is this a mockumentary? But no, that was like just
Speaker 1: the beginning, and it's like a stylistic thing that's never
Speaker 1: brought back again. I know, like they're supposed to be caricatures,
Speaker 1: but it just like I don't know that there were
Speaker 1: moments where it like felt like it wanted to be
Speaker 1: grounded in reality, and then it Wasn't, and I just
Speaker 1: I didn't like it. It was like listening to a
Speaker 1: really annoying song for an hour ago and I just
Speaker 1: wanted it to be over. I really really did not
Speaker 1: like it. I listened a lot of things that you
Speaker 1: didn't like about it are the things that I love
Speaker 1: about Strictly Ballroom. And you know, I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it is definitely like a fine movie.
Speaker 1: Like I Wasn't, I'm never itching to rewatch that movie.
Speaker 1: But I do think that part of the reason I
Speaker 1: really wanted you I wasn't. I never do this, but
Speaker 1: I did text you and I said, just reminding you
Speaker 1: to watch Strictly Ballroom, you know, And I did really
Speaker 1: want you to watch it because I think it encapsulates
Speaker 1: something that's really important about Basil Erman's work. When he
Speaker 1: doesn't have the budget, like when he doesn't have the
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar budget that he has on something like Gadsby,
Speaker 1: you see the bones of what he's trying to say
Speaker 1: as a as a director, and you don't get lost
Speaker 1: in all the glitz and glam of it all, which
Speaker 1: still makes his movies great. But even without the hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars, he's still doing the same buffoonery he does
Speaker 1: everywhere else, right, but I love much more, much more,
Speaker 1: d I y. I think the buffoonery works sometimes and
Speaker 1: other times it really does not. It did not work
Speaker 1: for me in Strictly Ballroom, It did not work for
Speaker 1: me and Elvis. It really worked for me in Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliette and Mulin Rouge. Also watching Strictly Ballroom, I
Speaker 1: had just rewatched Dirty Dancing like a week before, which
Speaker 1: is which is one of my favorite movies, and compared
Speaker 1: to each other, like you can't. You can't compare them
Speaker 1: to each other because like they're like they're like they're
Speaker 1: kind of the same movie in a lot of ways. Well,
Speaker 1: Strictly is very clearly a satire of of Dirty Dancing, right,
Speaker 1: they use in the late eighties. It's like and they
Speaker 1: use time after time. They do it on purpose, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a kind of like, oh, den,
Speaker 1: your woman who doesn't know her own sexual power and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden she does. Like that's the satire.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of why I love I'm Strictly Ballroom
Speaker 1: is because I actually think that the taking the glasses
Speaker 1: off the nerd to discover that she's a gorgeous woman.
Speaker 1: I don't think that was in earnest like I think
Speaker 1: that Bass understands that that is a trope and and
Speaker 1: UM sorry, we on like a virgin, try to discuss
Speaker 1: camp as infrequently as possible, but it cannot be you know,
Speaker 1: extricated from bass work. Is that camp is like one
Speaker 1: of the primary tools in Bazi's toolbox, and that is
Speaker 1: something that I think he was flexing on instrict the
Speaker 1: that worked for me and did not work for you. Um,
Speaker 1: but I feel like um a very cartoonish blocking of scenes,
Speaker 1: hyper stylized um emotional steaks with emotional with something that
Speaker 1: is like completely fake and totally cartoonish in camp, but
Speaker 1: also an emotional realism in the acting that kind of
Speaker 1: grounds it. Um is something that is a lot of
Speaker 1: his work. But that's the thing is that I in
Speaker 1: strictly ballroom, I only saw the camp and did not
Speaker 1: get the real emotion. Like like Romeo and Juliet is
Speaker 1: so larger than life, and yet in those moments where
Speaker 1: it's like heartbreaking or tender, you feel that Mulin Rouge
Speaker 1: like is so over the top and so maximalist. And
Speaker 1: yet I still cry when Satine dies or like you
Speaker 1: have that moment where you know she leaves Christian and
Speaker 1: like it's heartbreaking and with strictly ballroom. To me, it
Speaker 1: was just a cartoon, and I agree. I did not
Speaker 1: feel any emotional steaks. I did not think these were
Speaker 1: real people at all. I think that there is a
Speaker 1: little emotional realism between the two dance partners. I think
Speaker 1: Fran really gives it to us. But I agree that
Speaker 1: it has at the base level, just not it's on
Speaker 1: the acting level. Actually, it's just not what Leo and
Speaker 1: Nicole are doing. Because it acts, it's bad. Although Scott
Speaker 1: is very hot, so he has aged really poorly. I looked. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get into what I think you have once described
Speaker 1: as one of your favorite movies at all time Romeo
Speaker 1: plus Juliet Um, and I think that when I came
Speaker 1: away from this movie. First of all, I cried watching
Speaker 1: this movie, and I've watched it so many times I
Speaker 1: still cried. Leo deserved an Oscar nom. I'm sorry, he
Speaker 1: deserved an Oscar nom for this movie period. I probably
Speaker 1: sound like an idiot for saying that, but I know
Speaker 1: Leo is incredible. That one scene where he's screaming when
Speaker 1: a gun. I sigh, you stars, it's so good. I
Speaker 1: also think I also think Claire Danes is incredible in it,
Speaker 1: so fucking good, the ending, the ending, or like when
Speaker 1: she when she goes to the priest with the gun.
Speaker 1: I think everyone acts their ass off in this movie. Um.
Speaker 1: Harold Parano who plays Marcuccio, so good, incredible performance. Also
Speaker 1: incredible usage of that song, um young hah something. I
Speaker 1: love the soundtrack. I mean the soundtrack of Romeo and
Speaker 1: Juliet is so good, like next level. Honestly, I think
Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet, I mean Romeo plus Juliet um really
Speaker 1: kind of shows us what bas does best. And I
Speaker 1: think that is cinematic invention, like to place Romeo and
Speaker 1: Juliet in the modern day, but to keep Shakespearean dialogue,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people are divided on whatever. And
Speaker 1: that's like where a lot of the criticism was. I
Speaker 1: think a cinematic invention. We have not seen someone do
Speaker 1: that before, and I do it so well, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you absolutely understand what they're saying. And I, unlike you,
Speaker 1: I'm not a Shakespearean dialogue girl like I, you know,
Speaker 1: could barely get through shakespeare books without spark notes, as
Speaker 1: you know, high schooler, that's just like my reading comprehension
Speaker 1: level and like and to see it in in context
Speaker 1: in this movie makes me sure that not only is
Speaker 1: this one of the most beautiful stories ever told, but
Speaker 1: like the best thing Shakespeare has ever written. It might
Speaker 1: not be my favorite Shakespeare play, but I think it's
Speaker 1: the best play that Shakespeare has ever written. And what
Speaker 1: I love about how bads to end with that. But okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing is, like, you know, in our
Speaker 1: West Side Story discussion, we touch briefly on the fact that, like,
Speaker 1: it's not a believable story, right, Romeo and Juliet, like
Speaker 1: you know, falling in love after one day and then
Speaker 1: you know, you kill the brother, you kill the cousin,
Speaker 1: and yet you still are in love with each other
Speaker 1: and then kill yourselves. It's like there's nothing about that
Speaker 1: that is has emotional realism in a modern day and
Speaker 1: yet that as makes you believe it, and that is
Speaker 1: really hard to do. And West Side Story did not
Speaker 1: make me believe it. Let me tell you. He makes
Speaker 1: the stakes very real, very believable. He also, i think,
Speaker 1: does what a lot of productions of Roman and Juliette
Speaker 1: failed to do, which has reminds you that these are
Speaker 1: teenagers and so of course the emotions are heightened. Of
Speaker 1: course everything is literally life and death because they're young
Speaker 1: and horny, and it makes them sexy, romantic and sexy.
Speaker 1: The scene where they see each other across the fish tank,
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful and the and the way thought was
Speaker 1: the cool scene. It's just so girl for me. The
Speaker 1: needle job is the um kiss, it's so I mean.
Speaker 1: But that's the other thing is like um that that
Speaker 1: that cinematic invention, like the fact that the meat cute
Speaker 1: is through an aquarium. Um. The fact that the Queen
Speaker 1: mad monologue is about you know, M D m A right,
Speaker 1: the mercutio is a faggot. And like when they when
Speaker 1: they fight with their guns, the gun says like dagger
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like that's I think that's like on the
Speaker 1: writing level, brilliant and fun and like people probably think
Speaker 1: it's like cheesy or cheap or you know, like all
Speaker 1: all of those kinds of things, but like I I
Speaker 1: just like have so much fun every single time I
Speaker 1: watched that movie, And I think that's like what's so
Speaker 1: good about his work and about the quote unquote Red
Speaker 1: Curtain Trilogy, even though I don't really think I think
Speaker 1: it's really wedged down. I don't think Strictly ball rominally belongs.
Speaker 1: It's a really good use of just spectacle storytelling. Um,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Romeo and Juliet in context is a spectacle,
Speaker 1: and so like placing it in this context makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. And yeah, I think all of the
Speaker 1: different tools that he uses to contemporize this story, like
Speaker 1: you know, the news report at the beginning, it just
Speaker 1: I love the news report. It's so it all works
Speaker 1: so well. And part of part of that is because
Speaker 1: like I do think that Bas works best when he's
Speaker 1: working with tropes and when he's applying his style to
Speaker 1: familiar stories, right, And you know, when I watched this movie,
Speaker 1: like in my like freshman English class, I I don't
Speaker 1: remember having an attachment to an attur right, like to
Speaker 1: see the aesthetic through lines of things that I love
Speaker 1: about bases work because I actually, okay, I watched Strictly
Speaker 1: Ballroom in my high school dance class. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like one of those moments where like your your teacher
Speaker 1: like doesn't feel like working that day, and then and
Speaker 1: then They're like, let's just watch a movie. Um, so
Speaker 1: it's weird that like my high school like just introduced
Speaker 1: me to all of Basilerman's work for like no reason.
Speaker 1: Um well because my otur when I was a teenager
Speaker 1: with Sofia Coppola. So like, is the real divide between
Speaker 1: maybe our sensibilities? Truly, it's truly actually that, and I
Speaker 1: think that actually perfectly encapsulates like where we come from
Speaker 1: on the artistic level. Okay, let's talk. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: just have to quickly say that, Um, the thing, the
Speaker 1: one thing that that Baz does not pull off with
Speaker 1: Robia blows Juliette is the fact that, um, the invention
Speaker 1: of phones and also therapy are just kind of conveniently
Speaker 1: ignored as they would have you know, resolved conflict of
Speaker 1: the play. Um, and yet here it is. But like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, what is there even to say about Mulan Rouge.
Speaker 1: And we have already talked about Mulan Rouge in our
Speaker 1: episode on Nicole Kidman, which you should definitely go back
Speaker 1: and revisit, So I think we won't get that too
Speaker 1: in depth in it today. But for me, like Romeo
Speaker 1: and I loved Romeo and Juliet, but I think Romo.
Speaker 1: What Romeo and Juliet opened me up two more was
Speaker 1: Shakespeare and it was like an entry point to that
Speaker 1: to me. Mulan Rouge I loved for itself and the
Speaker 1: thing that it was, and I remember seeing it and
Speaker 1: being so gagged by it, and you know, like thinking,
Speaker 1: oh God, the movie musical is back, because it kind
Speaker 1: of the movie musical was kind of dead when when
Speaker 1: Mulan Rouge came out, and it did sort of revive
Speaker 1: it for a little bit, but nothing really ever kind
Speaker 1: of came close to well. Ship was Chicago, was in Chicago,
Speaker 1: was in the in the dust of Or it came
Speaker 1: right after again bas is working with an existing story.
Speaker 1: Malan Rouge is based off of Labo M and he
Speaker 1: tells this kind of archetypal tail in the biggest way possible,
Speaker 1: and it just really works because all the elements are there,
Speaker 1: like the story, the setting, you know, like the you know,
Speaker 1: the Bohemian Revolution and like can Can dancers and Paris
Speaker 1: and like it just all works. And then you have
Speaker 1: you and McGregor being like the most perfect soft boy
Speaker 1: like lead ever. I was so in love with him
Speaker 1: after this movie. Oh my god, oh, Jim Broadbent is
Speaker 1: so compelling. The villains are so compelling. Every performance is
Speaker 1: so good and like the the just the fagotry injected
Speaker 1: in all of bass films is really palpable, Like the
Speaker 1: frenetic nous really works there, Like um, you know at
Speaker 1: the beginning when Christian goes to their apartment and like
Speaker 1: there's the sound of music moment and then the person
Speaker 1: who'd been writing the plays like goodbye, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: can just hear those lines reading so perfectly, and like
Speaker 1: that the story moves so quickly and you don't miss anything.
Speaker 1: Like the swiftness with which you move through the setup
Speaker 1: works really well and like gets you where you need
Speaker 1: to go with the perfect amount of time, Like that
Speaker 1: movie starts and like I think within the first ten minutes,
Speaker 1: like Nicole is descending from the ceiling. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: like everything about like all of baz is work line
Speaker 1: rating is actually I'm thinking also about and um um,
Speaker 1: Lady Calcula is so fierce and in that movie in
Speaker 1: the other in Romeo and Julia and how she goes
Speaker 1: Romeo slut Romeo Should I live? It's like that as
Speaker 1: had you as a director be like can you take
Speaker 1: it to a hundred and twenty for me, like he
Speaker 1: like that or the nurse in Romeo and Juliett. Let's
Speaker 1: get into the rest of bass work, which is I
Speaker 1: think much more mediocre. Um. I think that bas suffers
Speaker 1: from structure issues, issues of like completely discarding like artistic
Speaker 1: devices that you've employed, or completely discarding emotional reality because
Speaker 1: you wanted to be a cartoon. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: times those are the best parts of something like Mulan
Speaker 1: Rouge or Romeo and Juliett. And with others it's just
Speaker 1: like you see right through it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I never saw Australia. No, we don't need to discuss.
Speaker 1: I saw the I saw The Great Gods me when
Speaker 1: it came out in theaters. I think I remember it
Speaker 1: being fine. The only thing memorable to me about Great
Speaker 1: Gods was the soundtrack, um, the Florence and then the
Speaker 1: Launa song, and so that's like very much. It's that
Speaker 1: movie I think was way more style over substance. I
Speaker 1: think that like, obviously stylistically that movie is pretty gorgeous,
Speaker 1: but like, and I also love parties. I love party scenes.
Speaker 1: I think that bass does it best in all of
Speaker 1: his movies. But um, the only thing that I remember
Speaker 1: from that movie is how good Carrie Mulligan is and
Speaker 1: I and I think of the famous shirt scene, which
Speaker 1: in the book is insane, like he's literally just pulling
Speaker 1: out these shirts and and and showing ore. She's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this shirts so beautiful and she just
Speaker 1: cries looking at shirts and it's like so confusing to read,
Speaker 1: but like Carrie Mulligan makes it makes sense, and I
Speaker 1: think that's really well blocked it, like it's something that
Speaker 1: part of it, you know, sure, part of it is
Speaker 1: that I just don't really love The Great Godsby as
Speaker 1: a book and so super care which is a bummer
Speaker 1: because Florence Welch is apparently like making a Great Gotsby musical. Okay,
Speaker 1: I will watch that, Yeah, I'll watch it too. So
Speaker 1: you there's some there's a I didn't know that there
Speaker 1: was this Basler ban TV show you were you were
Speaker 1: mentioning before. Can you can you give me a little
Speaker 1: like t l d R on what that was? Yes?
Speaker 1: T L d R. The get Down is a Netflix
Speaker 1: original series that came out in the kind of House
Speaker 1: of Cars Oranges, the New Black era of Netflix. Basically,
Speaker 1: I'm the Getdown is about the emergence of disco and
Speaker 1: hip hop that rose around the same time, and how
Speaker 1: those communities, which are obviously, you know, based in black
Speaker 1: culture and invention of black culture, surrounds a kind of
Speaker 1: group of like artists and rappers coming up in like
Speaker 1: nine seventies Harlem, and you know, on paper, it's like,
Speaker 1: are you sure you want to tell this story? Vesseler
Speaker 1: and like yikes, um And but I honestly so. I
Speaker 1: watched it as it came out, UM way back when,
Speaker 1: and I remember liking it a lot um and being
Speaker 1: really shocked by that there wasn't more negative sentiment around
Speaker 1: to get Down, like I I I really was. That
Speaker 1: had a lot of critical acclaim and the second that
Speaker 1: it was canceled after the release of its first two parts.
Speaker 1: But the second part I know, but this I know Netflix, Um.
Speaker 1: But the second part UM got even better reviews. It
Speaker 1: was even more critically acclaimed, and they felt like Baths
Speaker 1: kind of cleaned up what he wasn't really doing well
Speaker 1: in the classic bas Lerman way, and something that must
Speaker 1: be noted and part of why I think the show
Speaker 1: UM was not under a lot of criticism and honestly,
Speaker 1: you know very in the through line of our Beyonce
Speaker 1: discussion last week is, um, you know, the production hired NAS,
Speaker 1: grand Master Flash, Curtis Blow, d J cool Herk, like
Speaker 1: all of these DJs that were in that era, like
Speaker 1: as producers on the show, Like they were credited to
Speaker 1: be a part of the story that Bows was trying
Speaker 1: to tell. And to me, that is the number one
Speaker 1: thing you can do as a creator is to make
Speaker 1: these people your lateral collaborators on something and so. And
Speaker 1: I also know that the rollout of the show invested
Speaker 1: in the communities he was trying to represent. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't have much more to say
Speaker 1: about it other than the fact that Jaden Smith in
Speaker 1: the last episode of the last part kiss as a guy,
Speaker 1: and that is the story. We were robbed up because
Speaker 1: I wanted to watch the Jaden Smith like romance flatline.
Speaker 1: But you know, the show was shockingly good. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie, Okay, interesting, Um, something that wasn't shockingly good
Speaker 1: was Elvis, which I talked about when I saw it
Speaker 1: last month, and we all know I did not like it. Um,
Speaker 1: you have since seeing it and now that we're talking
Speaker 1: about Baz. I think we can talk about the reasons
Speaker 1: why I don't think it works in the context of
Speaker 1: all his other work, and why you agree disagree. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we have um some I disagreed with at
Speaker 1: least one point that you brought up on the pod
Speaker 1: that I kind of want to But the rest I
Speaker 1: think I agreed with. Well, let's talk it about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I I wanted to, like, no, no, no, not
Speaker 1: even call you in. I think that it's um because
Speaker 1: your take, I think is the most common take I heard.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of people say a version of
Speaker 1: the like the movie is not interested in Elvis's life,
Speaker 1: and like this is not a biopic, right, Like it's not,
Speaker 1: you know, a telling of a very fascinating figure in
Speaker 1: pop culture. And I I agree that, like the focal
Speaker 1: point should have been on Elvis and the fact that
Speaker 1: the whole movie focuses on his manager, someone who is
Speaker 1: essentially like the Scooter Braun of the nineteen fifties. Like
Speaker 1: it's like, we don't, like I don't want to watch
Speaker 1: a movie about Scootlebron, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: maybe that's a bass next project, but it's like that's
Speaker 1: not fascinating. But to me, I think that I guess
Speaker 1: I should say I didn't disagree with the take, but
Speaker 1: I think the spin on it is that if bas
Speaker 1: is going to do a movie about Elvis's life, I'm
Speaker 1: not looking for reality. Like I'm never going to sign
Speaker 1: up for a bas Learnman movie and say, oh, I
Speaker 1: expect this to be keeping up with the thing it's
Speaker 1: trying to portray. I did not do not expect it
Speaker 1: to be historically accurate. I do not expect it to
Speaker 1: be invested in truth, even though freedom, beauty, truth and
Speaker 1: love are as Lehman's belief systems. But like I just
Speaker 1: it's it's I knew that it wasn't gonna be true,
Speaker 1: quote unquote, and I still felt like there was a
Speaker 1: movie in the Elvis movie that was really good. It
Speaker 1: just like should have been structured better. The structure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I didn't need I didn't need truth either, but
Speaker 1: I did need beauty, freedom, and love and I didn't
Speaker 1: get I didn't get any of those. I think I
Speaker 1: think Baz told a story about Elvis that he wanted
Speaker 1: to rather than trying to find the most interesting story.
Speaker 1: And like I mean, when it comes to biopics. I
Speaker 1: have to say I don't love biopics, but I would
Speaker 1: much rather watch a biopic that's like a slice of life,
Speaker 1: like something like My Week with Maryland or Judy, even
Speaker 1: though Judy is a really bad movie, but Renee's Elwigar
Speaker 1: gives an incredible performance in it. Um I think it's
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to tell the entirety of someone's life story,
Speaker 1: especially someone who's had such a huge impact on pop
Speaker 1: culture the way that Elvis did. But I think Basil
Speaker 1: Erman just got so much in his own way with
Speaker 1: that movie, and just it's it's crazy to see him
Speaker 1: doing the same things he did all the way back
Speaker 1: in Strictly Ballroom, but with so much money and power
Speaker 1: at his disposal, and it's all the same artistic impulses
Speaker 1: just dialed up to a thousand, and they're still getting
Speaker 1: in the way of telling an interesting story. That is
Speaker 1: a failure of the maximalism for sure. And like, I
Speaker 1: think that because bas has so many ideas or all
Speaker 1: of his you know, co collaborators forget to tell him, Hey, honey,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about editing this movie? Because Great
Speaker 1: Gatsby is three hours long, Australia's three hours long. Elvis
Speaker 1: is three hours long, and all of these movies do
Speaker 1: not need to be three hours long. And also except
Speaker 1: Titanic needs to be throwing. And also just like structural nightmares,
Speaker 1: like have no idea why we're going back and forth
Speaker 1: over and over again, um time wise and and and failing.
Speaker 1: And also just like the way that bas employees voice
Speaker 1: over is like so cheap and so bizarre. And I
Speaker 1: just like if I heard Tom Hanks's accent, if I'm
Speaker 1: on set day one with Tom Hanks and this is
Speaker 1: the accent he is doing, I'm rewriting the movie. I'm
Speaker 1: recounting the movie. He was so cast. He was horrible.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm literally there, there's no and I'm not
Speaker 1: someone who says very flatly like I like to add
Speaker 1: nuance of things. He was patently bad, and I'm upset
Speaker 1: about I feel like it was an insult, honestly to
Speaker 1: the story as a whole for him to do what
Speaker 1: he did with this role. And I thought that Baz wrote,
Speaker 1: I don't know why Bas was so fascinated by him
Speaker 1: as a character. It's that's another movie, babe, you know
Speaker 1: what do you mean? But like for me, even though
Speaker 1: maybe because bas sees himself in him's and that's very telling.
Speaker 1: That's the day girl, Oh my god. And I honestly though,
Speaker 1: Um Austin what's his face? Was transcendent when he's great,
Speaker 1: it's a great performance, and like I think he'll probably
Speaker 1: be nominated for an Oscar well, But the thing is
Speaker 1: his acting. His I think his actual acting was not
Speaker 1: very good, but I felt like his performances as Elvis
Speaker 1: were some of some of my favorite things I've watched
Speaker 1: on screen in a year or more. Like, I think
Speaker 1: his acting is good in that he does a really
Speaker 1: good job of being Elvis, just like your voice and
Speaker 1: the mannerism of the loan I think are enough to
Speaker 1: get him an Oscar nomination. The wigs unforgivable in this movie.
Speaker 1: Elvis has cuckoo banana's hair, but it doesn't look it
Speaker 1: doesn't need to look like a wig, and it looks
Speaker 1: like a wig. And I just like I felt that
Speaker 1: that was like very distracting throughout. But like there's like
Speaker 1: a failure in like how biopics are marketed in general, right,
Speaker 1: like pretty much anything that UM tries to interpret a
Speaker 1: real person is called a biopic, but not all just
Speaker 1: as you said, like My Week with Maryland, it's not
Speaker 1: really a biopic, it's just a slice of life story.
Speaker 1: And I agree, like those are my favorite kind of
Speaker 1: adaptations of real people in real celebrities. So I think
Speaker 1: the marketing at Elvis is part of why it's suffered, right,
Speaker 1: Like people came in from a movie about Elvis and
Speaker 1: because it's called Elvis, and that's just not what they
Speaker 1: got um and becau as it had been labeled biopic,
Speaker 1: Like it just like doubles the anger that you feel
Speaker 1: when you walk out of that um film. But like
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks obviously could have been in like eight percent
Speaker 1: less of it. And on top of that, like obviously
Speaker 1: you're not going to have a conversation about Elvis without
Speaker 1: talking about like his relationship to black people in and
Speaker 1: um that as is someone who is not necessarily um failed.
Speaker 1: I think if you look at the get down, like
Speaker 1: you know, there are some really offensive things um and
Speaker 1: how people are portrayed. Sure, um, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, he like you know, he tried, they
Speaker 1: tried whatever. But like I thought that like what they
Speaker 1: were trying to say about like Elvis, you know, coming
Speaker 1: up in the Black Church, or like being having this
Speaker 1: transcendent moment in the Black Church and then being really
Speaker 1: sad when Martin Luther King died. It's like it was
Speaker 1: offensively shallow, Like there was shallow and like it was
Speaker 1: a spin on what actually happened, because what actually happened
Speaker 1: is that Elvis stole black music, yeah, and appropriated it.
Speaker 1: And in the movie it's very like, oh, they were
Speaker 1: so happy for his success. Yes, black people give him
Speaker 1: and he was such good friends with BB King, like
Speaker 1: of course, and he wasn't like he they were friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like that was just like a quote unquote cinematic invention,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Um, Like it just was not it
Speaker 1: was not right, and it has everything to do with
Speaker 1: us exactly. And I just like I um, for me,
Speaker 1: the movie, and I'd be curious to know, like what
Speaker 1: is the Elvis movie you want to see? Because for me,
Speaker 1: it's like Elvis versus the American Moral Crisis of the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties is an amazing movie. Like the censorship of
Speaker 1: it all was so fascinating and that should have been
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, Like I honestly think a movie
Speaker 1: that is entirely about like that one concert he did
Speaker 1: at the baseball field, like and everything around that is
Speaker 1: a really interesting movie. I also think like a movie
Speaker 1: that's just about his time in Hollywood would be a
Speaker 1: really interesting piece of his life, um or something if
Speaker 1: you wanted to do something this little darker, something about
Speaker 1: his final years, Like is there a movie that's like
Speaker 1: about one show that he did in Vegas? You know, like,
Speaker 1: because I do think at the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: when he's doing those Vegas performances like that, to me
Speaker 1: were some of the parts that worked the best. And
Speaker 1: so I think like that movie with like an older
Speaker 1: actor who's like Elvis at the end of his life
Speaker 1: could be really interesting. But that's the problem with this
Speaker 1: movie is that it tries to be all those different
Speaker 1: movies in one movie, and it is also still this
Speaker 1: movie about Elvis's manager. And and that's the thing is
Speaker 1: like I love villains, Bats loves villains right like Tible,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, John Leguizamo, we forgot to talk about
Speaker 1: John Leguizamo and fucking Romeo and Juliet. Like Bass is
Speaker 1: good at villains, And so because we understand him as
Speaker 1: an outur, we understand why he might focus on Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks's character. But it's just not always interesting heroes, and
Speaker 1: Elvis was not a hero in his own movie to me.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but also like Elvis was kind of a
Speaker 1: piece of ship in his later life and and at
Speaker 1: least in his later life, And I think I would
Speaker 1: have really loved to see, you know, the growth between
Speaker 1: this like country boy who was you know, so modest,
Speaker 1: yet his hips didn't lie back when he did those
Speaker 1: like recordings, which when I first watched the movie, I
Speaker 1: started revisiting like the earliest, early early recordings of Elvis
Speaker 1: and how different he sounds, and the movie I think
Speaker 1: gorgeously adapts like how um Elvis thought about um blues
Speaker 1: music and grass and and and that I honestly had
Speaker 1: never really thought about Elvis in the tradition of blues,
Speaker 1: honestly because Elvis music is almost became its own genre
Speaker 1: because a white person had never really done it before. Um.
Speaker 1: And so this like rock hybrid became like it started
Speaker 1: a whole new generation of rock pop, right. Um. But
Speaker 1: I was revisiting all this like old Elvis music, and
Speaker 1: like it really is like stunning, stunning music. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it's it was recorded through a tin can but
Speaker 1: it's still so just the movie did not make me
Speaker 1: want to revisit Elvis's music or learn anything else about him.
Speaker 1: I just was so put off by all of the
Speaker 1: shenanigans and the sparkle and the editing and the fucking
Speaker 1: Dojakat song and it just like it just left me
Speaker 1: completely like apathetic about all of it. And that's the
Speaker 1: thing is, like it's almost like the things that you
Speaker 1: and I really love about Basil Ermann are the things
Speaker 1: that his last three films have really suffered from, right,
Speaker 1: a surplus of ideas that the plot suffers from. And like,
Speaker 1: you know, I agree that, like this is kind of
Speaker 1: a lame movie, but like I had the opposite reaction.
Speaker 1: I became much more fascinated with the reality of Elvis's
Speaker 1: life and so he did deep dive and revisit a
Speaker 1: lot of his work. And and you know that's something
Speaker 1: that I think I can credit the movie for, Like
Speaker 1: it's still created Wikipedia. Yeah, that was it. I know that.
Speaker 1: And I would rather have just read his Wikipedia than
Speaker 1: I have seen that movie. I would left those three
Speaker 1: hours of my life. Well that's and that's the other
Speaker 1: thing is like the movie was very Wikipedia like it really,
Speaker 1: And that's like, if you're going to do a biopic,
Speaker 1: like Slice of Life is the way to go. It
Speaker 1: was very wikipedia and then still glossed over all these
Speaker 1: uncomfortable aspects of his life, like the fact that he
Speaker 1: was a fucking groomer, child predator. I forgot about that?
Speaker 1: How did you gloss over that? And that's also like
Speaker 1: back to the piece of ship of it all. It's like,
Speaker 1: it would be so fascinating to go from you know,
Speaker 1: po dunk country boy to the horrendously corrupt Vegas sell
Speaker 1: out that he became like the death of a soul,
Speaker 1: which I think the movie trying to get at was
Speaker 1: very fascinating to me. And how Vegas was a kind
Speaker 1: of moment of sellout created obviously by a very evil manager,
Speaker 1: but that's still something that's like really fascinating. And to
Speaker 1: become someone who was angry, who was depressed, who you know,
Speaker 1: routinely took out a gun and shot TVs or whatever,
Speaker 1: Like that's the movie I wanted to watch. What do
Speaker 1: you think could be next for Baslorman or what would
Speaker 1: you like to see from him? Whatever it is? It's
Speaker 1: not original material, right, like Bas only adapts existing material
Speaker 1: with the exception of Strictly ball Room, but even you
Speaker 1: could argue that that was an adaptation of Dirty Dance,
Speaker 1: a bas Lerman Marvel movie. I Well, Bass has said
Speaker 1: that he wanted to adapt guys and dolls like Bass.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if y'all I reread the
Speaker 1: New York Times profile. I remember reading it back when
Speaker 1: it came out and and being and remembering how absurd
Speaker 1: it was, um, and that it really actually changed my
Speaker 1: relationship to someone that I really really loved. But like,
Speaker 1: he's this like whackadoodle man who like lays in bed
Speaker 1: and has like four assistance like surrounding him, like recording
Speaker 1: everything he says, and like you know, when he says,
Speaker 1: comes sit by the bed, they come sit by the bed, right,
Speaker 1: and he like hops out of the bed and he's naked,
Speaker 1: and he's like it's nude Fridays. And like he's laying
Speaker 1: in bed with his collaborator. Inappropriate. Yes, it's it's so inappropriate.
Speaker 1: It's literally sexual sexual harassment. UM. But also like him
Speaker 1: and his collaborator slash wife is fascinating to me. Her
Speaker 1: name is CM. She goes by CM, like everyone calls
Speaker 1: her CM, and she won two oscars from Mulan Rouge right,
Speaker 1: the bas famously has no oscars from Mulan. I mean
Speaker 1: has the oscar. Sure, But like those awards went to
Speaker 1: his wife for production and costume, and I think that
Speaker 1: the whole thing, you know, to to polish of the convo.
Speaker 1: Bass would probably be better at making movies if he
Speaker 1: was just gay, but he's not. He's not, and but
Speaker 1: he has this like costume designer, production design wife and
Speaker 1: they have a bizarrely kind of chased business production relationship.
Speaker 1: Like it's so I would love to meet and talk
Speaker 1: and have dinner with him because I feel like I
Speaker 1: can't fully grasp Bas as a human even I think
Speaker 1: that we're all the profile. I would think that would
Speaker 1: be so infuriating conversation with him, Yeah, because he's clearly
Speaker 1: a narcissist, but anybody that rich and famous has to be.
Speaker 1: We are going on vacation, it's the end of summer.
Speaker 1: We're gonna, you know, like live our lives a little bit.
Speaker 1: So the next needed TLC. Yes, So the next two
Speaker 1: episodes are prerecorded, but they're really good. They're going to
Speaker 1: be sort of like the bonus episodes we were doing
Speaker 1: in June where we get a little deeper, a little
Speaker 1: more personal and vulnerable. They're less timely, but still listen.
Speaker 1: Are really good, um, and support us because we all
Speaker 1: deserve vacations. We've been working very hard all summer, especially
Speaker 1: producer Phoebe, to get these apps edited and out and
Speaker 1: as always post about the show tag our finsta at
Speaker 1: like a virgin for um. Tell us what you think
Speaker 1: of these special apps honestly, like we're always shaping the show,
Speaker 1: figuring out what you guys like, what you dislike, and
Speaker 1: we don't always take it into consideration, but like always
Speaker 1: curious to know, like what you're responding to. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It
Speaker 1: really helps us a lot, even if it's like sassy
Speaker 1: or well not negative, because if you don't like the show,
Speaker 1: then don't listen to it and don't tell us. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm your co host Rose Damn You, and you can
Speaker 1: find me anywhere online at Rose Damn You, and I'm
Speaker 1: your other co host Fran Toronto. You can find me
Speaker 1: at friends, switch co on all social media and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I finally finally finally started when I noticed you. But
Speaker 1: you've been making TikTok's I've I've been enjoying them, been
Speaker 1: trying to follow your guidance and just post things without
Speaker 1: just ship post um. Subscribe to Like a Virgin anywhere
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts and leave us a rating on
Speaker 1: Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. Like a Virgin
Speaker 1: is an i Heeart radio production our producers Phoebe Unter,
Speaker 1: with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane, Chitch
Speaker 1: and Nikki Etour until next week, Bye Choo