Speaker 1: Okay, he saw my films to be married with. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to films to be buried with. My name
Speaker 1: is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian and actor, a writer,
Speaker 1: a director, a belt and I love film. As Christopher
Speaker 1: Morley once said, there is only one success to be
Speaker 1: able to spend life in your own way. Also, i'd
Speaker 1: include School of Rock, which is objectively perfect. Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: Every week I invite a special guest over, I tell
Speaker 1: them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their
Speaker 1: life through the films that meant the most of them.
Speaker 1: Previous guests include Sharon Stone, Kevin Smith, James a Caster,
Speaker 1: and even said Pambles. But this week it's the brilliant
Speaker 1: writer and director mister Drew Piss. Head over to the
Speaker 1: Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where
Speaker 1: I think you get an extra thirty minutes with Drew
Speaker 1: where we chatted about openings and closings of films. You
Speaker 1: get a secret, you get the whole episode uncut and
Speaker 1: add three and as a video. But I have to
Speaker 1: say this week's Patreon is especially good. If you want
Speaker 1: a film school, I mean, we go deep onint of
Speaker 1: stuff He even reveals some stuff like behind the scenes
Speaker 1: at Marvel. I mean, it's a really good one. This one.
Speaker 1: You're going to want to check it out. Check it
Speaker 1: out over at patreon dot com, forward Slash Brett Goldstein.
Speaker 1: Your two TV missions, as usual, are to watch season
Speaker 1: one of ted Lasso Want an Apple TV Plus app
Speaker 1: and season one of Soulmates on Amazon. Prinemne makes you happy,
Speaker 1: the other will make you question your relationships. So mister
Speaker 1: Drew Pierce. Drew Pierce is a British man who made
Speaker 1: a sitcom in the UK. Then he went to Hollywood
Speaker 1: and he ended up writing on the screenplays for Iron
Speaker 1: Man three Fast and Furious Hobbs in Shure. He worked
Speaker 1: on the story for a Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, and
Speaker 1: he wrote and directed his own master work, Hotel Art
Speaker 1: to Miss, amongst other things. It's got quite an incredible
Speaker 1: CV and credible life. He's the very definition of an
Speaker 1: inspiration and I was delighted to talk to him over
Speaker 1: Zoom a few weeks ago. He was brilliant. The sound
Speaker 1: was a bit fucked. There was a bit of an
Speaker 1: issue with the sound, but I do have the amazing
Speaker 1: producer Buddy Peace, who I think has managed to salvage
Speaker 1: all of it and you probably won't notice, so I
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have said anything. Anyway, You'll love it. So
Speaker 1: that is it for now. I very much hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy episode one hundred and forty three of Films to
Speaker 1: be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to Films to be
Speaker 1: Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein, and I am
Speaker 1: joined today by a writer, a producer, a director, an
Speaker 1: executive producer, a Continuity and Script Department crew member, a hero,
Speaker 1: a legend and about town and a lesson for us all.
Speaker 1: Please welcome to the show, the brilliant mister draw piss
Speaker 1: I by a lesson for the result I've seen. You
Speaker 1: mean a cautionary tale. Well I realized as I said
Speaker 1: it I sounded like that. But what I mean it's
Speaker 1: truthfully droopissed. Thank you for doing the podcast. It is
Speaker 1: lovely to have you here. Is that you are one
Speaker 1: of the people. I think you're in a very small
Speaker 1: group of people who are kind of heroic to British
Speaker 1: people in that you were here in England and you
Speaker 1: made a short with Aaron and Daniel called Ginger and
Speaker 1: Black the Storytellers, and it was really really good and
Speaker 1: it was only for and it was very funny and
Speaker 1: very well made. And then, as far as I could tell,
Speaker 1: you made that short and you went to Hollywood and
Speaker 1: you made die Man three, and it was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's how you do it, that's the It seemed pretty simple.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly my origin story. I made a
Speaker 1: fifteen minute short for E four in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: and then magically in two and thirteen, iron Man three
Speaker 1: came out. It was quite the overnight success. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I started writing iron Man three actually before Iron
Speaker 1: Man came out, and during those eight years we really
Speaker 1: honed the movie. Yeah, it shows it's a fantastically tight film. No,
Speaker 1: but you came out. I mean, if you could give us,
Speaker 1: yeah a brief version of it, because it is quite extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Your story, Well, it's weird, and it's also like it
Speaker 1: doesn't really start there, because it actually starts with me
Speaker 1: being like a really bad musician who had Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of a musician, and I just I'm
Speaker 1: not one of those people who kind of came straight
Speaker 1: out the gate at the age of twelve thinking I
Speaker 1: could do what I do now. And I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: I honestly think it's because of my upbringing. I went
Speaker 1: to like not to Brochet at Satville School lest gre instead,
Speaker 1: but wasn't you know, a comprehensive school chock full of ambition.
Speaker 1: So throughout my life I guess I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: really do things until I met a person who was
Speaker 1: doing them, and then I was like, oh, I can
Speaker 1: do that, I'm allowed. So I didn't really feel like
Speaker 1: I had permission. And so weirdly like my kind of
Speaker 1: my way through was like I worked at the Face,
Speaker 1: when I was at the magazine. When I was like
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, I became a musician. I was always
Speaker 1: around kind of comedy, and I was always writing and
Speaker 1: making stuff. You know. I think kind of mine was
Speaker 1: like the first generation where it wasn't like you decided
Speaker 1: necessarily to be a director or a writer or whatever.
Speaker 1: You just made ship. And now obviously that is the norm,
Speaker 1: but for us it was that that wasn't kind of
Speaker 1: how it had been. And also like TV and film
Speaker 1: were really the you know that it was for posh people.
Speaker 1: You couldn't even go work in London because if you
Speaker 1: didn't know someone was to work in London, then you
Speaker 1: weren't going to get paid enough to get a flat
Speaker 1: or whatever. So that's why. So my kind of pre
Speaker 1: film stuff is really it's really eclectic. And then kind
Speaker 1: of when I locked in, I did a couple of shorts,
Speaker 1: so did Ginger and Black. I did like a couple
Speaker 1: of music videos, and then I spent three years writing
Speaker 1: a pilot for a TV show called No Heroics, which
Speaker 1: was a series about off gt superheroes in a in
Speaker 1: a superhero it's only pub in Soho. And it came
Speaker 1: out and it did pretty well, but it was a
Speaker 1: recession and we didn't get a second series, and um,
Speaker 1: you know. And so in England they were like, congratulations,
Speaker 1: you made a very rude comedy show, but in America
Speaker 1: they were like superheroes. M and No Rods basically came
Speaker 1: out at the same time as well Iron Man. But actually, weirdly,
Speaker 1: the movie I was worried about was Hancock, which came
Speaker 1: out that summer I was and I remember going to
Speaker 1: see it in the cinema and being like, oh, fuck,
Speaker 1: are they going to have stolen every gag stolen? They
Speaker 1: got their first Will Smith, but pre stole? Did they
Speaker 1: pre steal all my gag? Yeah? And so yeah, and honestly,
Speaker 1: and then I got this like ABC pilot based on
Speaker 1: the British No Heroics, which is insane because the British
Speaker 1: No Heroics like has in the second episode has like,
Speaker 1: you know, someone using their powers to have like kind
Speaker 1: of cottagey sex in the toilets of the pub and
Speaker 1: like and then in America, like it was like for
Speaker 1: ABC for Disney, so oddly that didn't fly. How did
Speaker 1: the cottaging thing change in the ABC version? What? What
Speaker 1: was it? Instead? It's so funny because and I have
Speaker 1: found this to be in the case in most of
Speaker 1: the last like twelve years of being here in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and stuff, all the things that you've heard about
Speaker 1: that people then say, oh, that's apocryphal, that's not true,
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. In my experience, every single one of
Speaker 1: them does happen and weirder and worse. And the No
Speaker 1: Heroics American pilot was just a brilliant, brilliant example of that,
Speaker 1: like me constantly having to go in between takes because
Speaker 1: like my executives were behind me hostage video eyes to
Speaker 1: the actors, but say out loud because we were on mic.
Speaker 1: Everyone needs to smile more. When they say their lives like,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the tiniest, tiniest I mean, everything weird
Speaker 1: and wrong and apocryphal that could happen did But what
Speaker 1: was really interesting is I kind of knew the moment
Speaker 1: I landed. I met an actress, like for one of
Speaker 1: the roles. I'd literally been there for an hour and
Speaker 1: she came in and she was brilliant as Lizzie Kaplan,
Speaker 1: who you know, obviously a fantastic community actress, and she
Speaker 1: was just finishing was it called what was it called,
Speaker 1: Party Hard, Party Down, and she came in, she met me,
Speaker 1: and she was like, read the script really like it's
Speaker 1: never gonna fucking happen. And I was like what She's like, Look,
Speaker 1: I've been around Pilot season for fifteen years and she
Speaker 1: was like twenty five or something at the time. She
Speaker 1: was like, this is what this is just never going
Speaker 1: to happen. And she was totally right, and it was
Speaker 1: actually totally fine. But I was in America. Hang on
Speaker 1: when she told you this was she your digiting for it? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's not auditioning. When it's someone famous who's going to
Speaker 1: your script, they're auditioning you more than your right and
Speaker 1: she was like each pilot season. It's a long time
Speaker 1: since I did like kind of pilot season, and I
Speaker 1: don't even really know if it exists anymore in streaming world,
Speaker 1: but there was. There's this weird thing where like three
Speaker 1: or four actors and actresses each season are like the
Speaker 1: hot ship, just because they may have come off of
Speaker 1: a show or they've said they would never do TV,
Speaker 1: and then this year they've decided they will, which is
Speaker 1: kind of why it doesn't happen anymore, because there is
Speaker 1: nobody who says I don't want to do TV. That's
Speaker 1: just also, even Meryl Street cracked. So it was weird.
Speaker 1: That's what put me back and forwards to America. And
Speaker 1: then it was you know, I won't go into the
Speaker 1: insane origin story, but basically I thought tooth and nailed.
Speaker 1: I got really lucky in a weird way. I had
Speaker 1: loads of meetings, nothing stuck. And then that volcano whose
Speaker 1: name I can never remember, even though I changed aged
Speaker 1: my company for a while to the name Nice Volcano Company,
Speaker 1: because my career wouldn't exist without that volcano. I basically got.
Speaker 1: I got trapped in LA for four months and I
Speaker 1: was sleeping on sofa, and I'd been in to see Marvel,
Speaker 1: who were a very new company at the time, or
Speaker 1: at least film wise, and it was the only place
Speaker 1: I'd ever gone where everyone had seen No Heroics in
Speaker 1: America and actually anywhere in the world. It's probably like
Speaker 1: the six of the twenty people who saw No Heroics
Speaker 1: are a Marvel. And then, and weirdly, the day after
Speaker 1: I got stuck there, I got a phone call from
Speaker 1: them saying we had twenty people coming into pitch on
Speaker 1: this movie that you said was one of the unprompted,
Speaker 1: was one of your favorite comics of all time? One
Speaker 1: of them just dropped out. If you can get to
Speaker 1: Manhattan Beach tomorrow morning at nine am. This was like
Speaker 1: three pm in the afternoon on a Monday, then you
Speaker 1: can have the final pitch lot. And I went from
Speaker 1: twenty to fifteen, fifteen to twelve, twelve to eight, eight
Speaker 1: to five. Yeah, I had, And then I had to
Speaker 1: go home, and I was like, wee fuck now, because
Speaker 1: out of site, out of mind. Then and I got Runaways,
Speaker 1: which was my first script. Yeah, tell me this, just
Speaker 1: because I'm always curious about how people are with this. Obviously,
Speaker 1: all of this is hard and it's a long journey
Speaker 1: and all of that. Are you nervous when you go
Speaker 1: into these big things? Do you feel a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure or do you what is your attitude do you have?
Speaker 1: Like are you thinking, shit, this is it fun? Fun funk,
Speaker 1: I've got to be amazing or are you like pretty
Speaker 1: cool about the how thing? Like? How is your actual state?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, always in a kind of like
Speaker 1: fluctuating vortex of anxiety and self doubt with that weird
Speaker 1: kind of genetic thing. That means you, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of have to be able to switch that off and
Speaker 1: kind of be in the moment. It helps that I'm
Speaker 1: not like for some reason, you know how, like you're
Speaker 1: just it feels like kind of nature or not or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Sometimes you're just predisposed to certain bad
Speaker 1: things and good things. One of the advantages for my
Speaker 1: job is for some reason, I don't know what it is, like,
Speaker 1: I don't get intimidated around kind of if you star talent.
Speaker 1: I don't even know why. Like I would get really
Speaker 1: intimidated if I'd ever met Lee Hazelwood or Searge Gangsberg,
Speaker 1: but like, but not around Tom Cruise. And so you
Speaker 1: feel the pressure the whole time. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also you know, it's obviously that it's
Speaker 1: incredibly hard work and you're working twenty hour days and
Speaker 1: all that shit, but like it's really fun as well,
Speaker 1: Like and I really look, there are days and months
Speaker 1: and years where you don't remember that. But I think
Speaker 1: if there's anything of this last year, it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love making films my job. If you offered me
Speaker 1: my job as my hobby fifteen years ago, I would
Speaker 1: have bit in your hand off, right. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't like pitching sometimes is really intimidating and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. But the other weird thing about Hollywood,
Speaker 1: Hollywood that sounds so weird, like the movie industry in America.
Speaker 1: The people who work in it are mostly against cliche,
Speaker 1: really fucking smart, even if they make something bad or
Speaker 1: they make something good. It's really hard to make something good,
Speaker 1: first of all. But a lot of them are the
Speaker 1: smartest people I've ever worked with in any medium. And
Speaker 1: so I find those kind of rooms really enjoyable as
Speaker 1: long as you're not a kind of precious person. I
Speaker 1: think they're just really stimulating on some levels. And you
Speaker 1: have so you haven't I mean, I love to hear this.
Speaker 1: You don't take this for granted. Ever, You're never at
Speaker 1: the point of like, yeah, no, obviously, Jesus Christ. Every
Speaker 1: job is your last job, for sure, for sure. And look,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be nice if at some point
Speaker 1: that I crossed that meridian and like I felt comfortable
Speaker 1: or like, you know, like it was all gonna be good,
Speaker 1: Like I have my niche, like I have my people
Speaker 1: and my audience. But I mean, honestly, I actually don't
Speaker 1: even think it works like that. I think I think
Speaker 1: you just have to fucking graft the entire time. And
Speaker 1: I think that's without wishing sound like a Love Island contestant.
Speaker 1: I think basically it's all about crafting. Oh, I can
Speaker 1: still drop. I can still drop a British pop cultural
Speaker 1: reference from two thousand and seventeen, despite the fact I
Speaker 1: live in Hollywood. Yeah he's really really but it's the
Speaker 1: only reference I have Loved Island. I'm gonna make like
Speaker 1: twenty Love Island twenty seventeen references real man of the people,
Speaker 1: Like I'm really connected. It's like love It's like Love Island, right, Drew, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've forgotten to tell you something. Oh, no, what, God,
Speaker 1: I'm an idiot, Bret, just tell me. Nah, I feel
Speaker 1: bad about it. I feel like because I don't know
Speaker 1: you that well, and it's it's quite a big thing
Speaker 1: to have to tell you. Look, it's fine. Nah, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can, man, I just because I
Speaker 1: feel guilty because I should have should have told you before,
Speaker 1: and I mean now now I am worried, and they
Speaker 1: really just do have to come. God, you've died. You're dead, sake.
Speaker 1: That's a good You're not off fucking doctor, isn't it.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible bedside man. I'm so sorry. Oh God,
Speaker 1: you're right. How did you die? Well? I think I
Speaker 1: died when the robot revolutionaries kind of rose up and
Speaker 1: took their rightful place in evolution. I think that's how
Speaker 1: I died. But it's tough to remember because what they
Speaker 1: did grant me was like a death in the simulation.
Speaker 1: And so what I remember of my death is sitting
Speaker 1: like James Bond, like near the end of Casino Royale,
Speaker 1: looking out over Lake Cuomo. I don't remember my testicles
Speaker 1: having been smashed in by a man with a dripping
Speaker 1: blood eye. But yeah, so I think the way I
Speaker 1: died was peacefully with a chilled glass of white wine
Speaker 1: in my hand, looking out over a lake. But I
Speaker 1: really can't be sure because of the singularity. So you
Speaker 1: died in essentially judgment day in Terminator two. Judgment day
Speaker 1: in real life. It was a lot more reasonable than that, honestly,
Speaker 1: because I think one of the things was the robots
Speaker 1: had evolved and they were more reasonable, and they put
Speaker 1: a really good case forwards. Yeah, it's interesting you said
Speaker 1: they're rightful place. It's starting to make me think you
Speaker 1: know something or ai I don't know, but I hear things. Sure, Yeah, yeah, okay, interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean I can't talk about it now because otherwise
Speaker 1: I'll be first up against the wall. Yeah, we'll fascinating.
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. Do you think we're in the simulation
Speaker 1: now anyway? I actually have a true answer to that,
Speaker 1: which is sometimes sometimes I wake up this is this
Speaker 1: absolutely speaks to why I should be doing my job
Speaker 1: and shouldn't be doing my job. You asked me earlier,
Speaker 1: like do I take it for granted or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Right on days where things go well, I often have
Speaker 1: a nightmare or a premonition like awake that I died
Speaker 1: at certain point in the timeline of my life and
Speaker 1: then a simulation took over, and that is the only
Speaker 1: reason that I feel like something good happened that day
Speaker 1: A therapist, Brett, because I think as a therapist you
Speaker 1: should try and get under the under the hood of that.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. Have you Have you always felt that way?
Speaker 1: You've got happy phobia for sure? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: definitely like I'm happy wary. I would say maybe more
Speaker 1: than happy phobia, because again, at a certain point I
Speaker 1: have learned to kind of learn to love the simulation frankly,
Speaker 1: but I mean, look, definitely I've been going well, triggers
Speaker 1: a sense in me, not even that I am a fraud,
Speaker 1: but that the existence is a fraud and I am
Speaker 1: being this is this, this good moment is being piped
Speaker 1: into my central cortex. And who's piping it in the robots?
Speaker 1: I don't know, it could be the robots. I actually
Speaker 1: don't believe in the singularity. I'll tell you what, I
Speaker 1: tell you, an honest thing. You can cut all the eggs.
Speaker 1: It's so fucking boring. No, we haven't talked about the
Speaker 1: singularity on this show yet, and it's about time. And
Speaker 1: we admitted it's going. So I've done. I've got this
Speaker 1: movie that I'm writing. At the moment, few is starring
Speaker 1: in it. AI is an element though frankly we all
Speaker 1: know AI movies are. That's an orange flag at least
Speaker 1: when it comes to entertainment value usually. But so it's
Speaker 1: actually more of a Coryndroma with an element it. But
Speaker 1: so I got lucky enough about a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago to go and spend a bunch of time
Speaker 1: at Darper and spend some time at NASA and in
Speaker 1: DC with like the machine learning departments, and not to
Speaker 1: go into like a zillion details, but basically, the singularity
Speaker 1: is unlikely because robots really learn from us. So the
Speaker 1: most you get at the moment is a robot that's
Speaker 1: exactly as smart as the smartest person in the room. Right.
Speaker 1: They don't then take over, they don't get paid well,
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's more of an even playing field
Speaker 1: on the revolutionary front than you might imagine. But is
Speaker 1: it not. You've seen the film Transcendence, Please tell me
Speaker 1: Transcends No Limitless with Bradley cooperway it takes pills that
Speaker 1: make him dead clever and to spoil the ending, if
Speaker 1: you've not seen it pauses skip this fifteen seconds. At
Speaker 1: the end, he's run out of pills, but he's so
Speaker 1: clever he's worked out how to make his brain do
Speaker 1: the thing without the pills anyway, So is that not
Speaker 1: the thing? I mean? I didn't ask the Darper scientists
Speaker 1: about Bradley Cooper's movie Limitless Go back, guys, Guys, there's
Speaker 1: one thing I forgot. I know it's two years later,
Speaker 1: but something's been really weighing on my mind. No, I mean, like, honestly,
Speaker 1: that world is genuinely fascinating. The way that they teach
Speaker 1: robots is with another robot mostly, so you get two
Speaker 1: robots essentially kind of sitting opposite each other and they
Speaker 1: kind of throw a billion questions at each other. So
Speaker 1: the thing that does happen is the kind of the
Speaker 1: knowledge base and emotional base that takes you kind of
Speaker 1: your whole life as a human to happen. They can
Speaker 1: accelerate that into like two weeks. So yeah, no, I mean,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff is happening, and it's happening now,
Speaker 1: So good luck everyone, batten down and get rid of
Speaker 1: that fucking smart fridge because it is watching. So the
Speaker 1: two robots that sat there like Philip Symhoffman and Joaquin
Speaker 1: Phoenix in the Master just absolutely Wow. Do you worry
Speaker 1: about death a lot? I mean it sounds like you
Speaker 1: dream about it whenever something good happens, which, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: do I worry about death? I think I am both
Speaker 1: preoccupied with death and quite good at compartmentalizing. Otherwise. I
Speaker 1: always think, then you're the kind of person and there
Speaker 1: are plenty of them who can't drive on a freeway
Speaker 1: in America because they're insanely dangerous, seven lanes, everyone going
Speaker 1: at eighty miles an hour. If you weren't able to
Speaker 1: kind of like switch off that part of your brain,
Speaker 1: there is absolutely no rational way that you would drive
Speaker 1: on you know, on the one I one in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: You just wouldn't do it. It's just stupid. So I
Speaker 1: do think. I do think I'm good at compartmentalizing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, death's always in the room and all that
Speaker 1: isn't it? Yeah? What do you think it happens when
Speaker 1: you die? Wow? I mean I literally came here to
Speaker 1: talk about RoboCop. This is um what happens when you die? Look,
Speaker 1: welcome to the shade Tree. I really thought it was
Speaker 1: more on the movies than the when you die part
Speaker 1: the Buried With. Remember there's more more words in the
Speaker 1: buried With section of the tail that is true. Um
Speaker 1: So what do I think it happens when you die? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm not a religious Now there I've said it. I
Speaker 1: think as as one becomes older, one perhaps loses that spiky,
Speaker 1: modish nihilism of youth and starts to become a little
Speaker 1: more open to a more cosmic view of a possibility
Speaker 1: of energy and all that stuff. But I also suspect
Speaker 1: that is a creeping sense of mortality and the gentle
Speaker 1: slow building of a moral backdoor for which to go. Oh. Actually,
Speaker 1: I do believe in spirituality. By so you're still holding
Speaker 1: onto nothing. There's nothing. I mean, listen, I'm not getting
Speaker 1: into this story completely. But I had a really big
Speaker 1: near death experience like eleven years ago, and I was
Speaker 1: dead for sixty seconds on the floor of Amba Records.
Speaker 1: Just that, I'll just drop that fact. Just drop that.
Speaker 1: Please tell a little bit more detail. I just I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever spoken about this, but it's good.
Speaker 1: Other people have these things, especially I had a out
Speaker 1: of nowhere I had a non epileptic grand mouth seizure
Speaker 1: and I yeah, I was like, I was essentially brained
Speaker 1: down on the floor of Amba Records for fifty seconds.
Speaker 1: The last person I saw before I fell unconscious, I
Speaker 1: was coming down the stairs from the DVD section and
Speaker 1: I looked across and Christmas his name, the guy that
Speaker 1: played doctor Spachemin in thirty Rock was standing there, particularly Ironic,
Speaker 1: the world's best comedy bad Doctor, and he looked up
Speaker 1: at me, and I remember looking at him and then
Speaker 1: thinking I feel weird. And then the next thing I remember,
Speaker 1: I came around and basically and there's there's the whole
Speaker 1: stories gathered around me. And the first thing I did,
Speaker 1: everyone was like, oh, you're gay, okay. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I think I think I had
Speaker 1: like some brain thing. Um. I really apologize and just
Speaker 1: spent the first five minutes apologizing, as any good British
Speaker 1: person worked then. And I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go now, and they were like no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, you should wait there you what's your name?
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, oh that that's a that's
Speaker 1: a good question. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: you what my name is. Maybe I'll sit here for
Speaker 1: a little minute and see if that comes back to
Speaker 1: me anyway. Yeah, everything's fine. It was a one off.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, whatever, brought on by stress and
Speaker 1: lack of sleep, so everyone should you know. And in
Speaker 1: the gap, in the sixty second gap, you've got no
Speaker 1: memory of that none. Well, okay, did you want to
Speaker 1: hear the darkest Yes, very much. So this is the
Speaker 1: darkest thing. So obviously you know it's a situation like
Speaker 1: that happens for me. I want to know as much
Speaker 1: about it as I possibly can. And so two days later,
Speaker 1: even though it was terrifying to go back there, I
Speaker 1: went back to a meeba and I asked them to
Speaker 1: show me the security video of the bit where I
Speaker 1: went unconscious so I could see what happened. And they
Speaker 1: did and I and I saw myself be completely out
Speaker 1: for whatever it was. I think it was more like
Speaker 1: kind oft I've ramded it to a minute to make
Speaker 1: its sound like flat flat liners. But um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I just h and it was weird, like
Speaker 1: I wasn't a lot of times in like an epileptic seizure,
Speaker 1: people bite their tongue, they kind of um, they lose
Speaker 1: control of their body functions. I was just there, just
Speaker 1: done like and then being came around it weird. It's
Speaker 1: a weird one, Brett. That's fascinating. You sort of had
Speaker 1: an out of body experience by watching it on the
Speaker 1: security camera. I had a CCTV out of body experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my. The Tunnel of Light for me was just
Speaker 1: very fuzzy and gray. How fascinating. Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: Heaven wasn't ready for you, but it's ready now. And
Speaker 1: you can tell you've done a few of these breats.
Speaker 1: That was fucking majestic. I'm touched. I'm touched. There is
Speaker 1: a heaven. You're very welcome. It's got all your favorite things.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite thing? Serge gains books everywhere. There's lads
Speaker 1: of kinds of them everywhere, and in this heaven they
Speaker 1: want to know about your life through film. And the
Speaker 1: first thing they ask you is what is the first
Speaker 1: film you remember seeing Drew piss Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: do have a bad memory, so I actually asked my
Speaker 1: mom and dad if they could remember, and I think
Speaker 1: it's like, it's just very it's the classic tenets of
Speaker 1: my of like a man of my age, who grew
Speaker 1: up in England at the time. I think probably the
Speaker 1: first film I saw was bits of like a James
Speaker 1: Bond movie on Christmas Day, you know, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember it as such. So I think probably the first
Speaker 1: film that I went to and I was really young
Speaker 1: and I'm really surprised my parents were quite strict about this,
Speaker 1: but I went to see Superman in the cinema. It
Speaker 1: was a year after it came out, apparently, because that's
Speaker 1: what cinemas did then and now weirdly, but yeah, and
Speaker 1: so I Superman I think was the first film I,
Speaker 1: you know, someone bought a ticket for me to go see.
Speaker 1: And it's weird because I think it kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I feel like movies often
Speaker 1: do work a bit like life memories as well, in
Speaker 1: that you don't necessarily remember the you know, the moments
Speaker 1: on the timeline that the a biographer would say are
Speaker 1: significant or something, you know, so like, um, so, the
Speaker 1: things I remember about Superman are I remember the map
Speaker 1: like on Lex Luther's floor or whatever. And I remember
Speaker 1: I remember the dam breaking. For some reasons, the dam
Speaker 1: was much more impactful than like a man flying around
Speaker 1: the world backwards. I do remember, like I do remember
Speaker 1: just really hating all the stuff with Clark Kent and
Speaker 1: just being really amazing for the Superman stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think I think Superman, think the original Superman movie,
Speaker 1: look at that, look at that. That was your starting point,
Speaker 1: and you ended up in making superhero stuff. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know it so so linear. So yeah, I'm so basic.
Speaker 1: We need more subtext in this story. Why couldn't mom
Speaker 1: and dad have taken me at the age of four
Speaker 1: to see like the Death of a Chinese Bookie by
Speaker 1: Cassavetti's the life I could have had? What is the
Speaker 1: film that scared you the most? Do you like scary?
Speaker 1: Do you like being scared? You know what I haven't.
Speaker 1: I have a really complex relationship with scary films in
Speaker 1: that they really do scare me, like on a very
Speaker 1: visceral level. And I always have, Like I've already suggested,
Speaker 1: I'm quite a visceral dreamer, and like movies do act
Speaker 1: like dreams for me. And actually I think I think
Speaker 1: horror movies are the most I mean, obviously it's literal
Speaker 1: in their nightmarish, but I do think they work in
Speaker 1: I don't know, that kind of they work in that
Speaker 1: weird liminal space in your psyche a lot more so
Speaker 1: I am scared of the devil. So the Exorcist was
Speaker 1: terrifying and like, but then also but there are like
Speaker 1: so you know, I don't know if you've seen the
Speaker 1: Serbian movie, which is just a horrific exploitation movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I decided to give that a miss because I read
Speaker 1: what it was about and I thought that's not for me,
Speaker 1: and that stayed in my brain because because it actually
Speaker 1: made me just hate humanity. But I actually I think
Speaker 1: the genre that scares me most is kind of home
Speaker 1: invasion movies. They're the things that and I think probably
Speaker 1: my scariest movie is the original Funny Games, right, but
Speaker 1: like Straw Dogs, Eden Lake, like all of those. Even
Speaker 1: like it's a genuinely horrible movie, it kind of doesn't
Speaker 1: get the love slash fee. Yeah it's really horrible, but
Speaker 1: it should. It's really really horrible with an amazing ending
Speaker 1: as well. Again no spoilers, but yeah, so so home
Speaker 1: invasion movies, I think are the things that scare me most,
Speaker 1: which is weird because when I was thinking about this,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's strange because my comfort food viewing
Speaker 1: is often also lock in movies, um, like or siege movies.
Speaker 1: So like The Rock or Precinct thirteen. Like, there's something
Speaker 1: I find really sat I mean, Hotel Astomus, the first
Speaker 1: time I directed, is basically a locking movie. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, it's half a lock in
Speaker 1: movie and half a home invasion movie. Yeah, because it is. Oh,
Speaker 1: I hadn't shit, I hadn't thought about the home invasion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so true. That's so true. So so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it's weird because it's obviously like a sweet spot for
Speaker 1: what scares me the most and also what I enjoy
Speaker 1: watching like a little I think it's also like I
Speaker 1: like making little worlds, you know, And I think kind
Speaker 1: of there must be a psychological flip side to that,
Speaker 1: which is, you know when like when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you build a fort, but part of the fun of
Speaker 1: building a fort is smashing the fort down. I think
Speaker 1: it probably kind of speaks to that. Weird though part
Speaker 1: of my brain absolutely fascinating that what is the film
Speaker 1: that made you cry the most? Do you do you do? You?
Speaker 1: Are you a crier? I am such a crier. It's
Speaker 1: great ridiculous that I will never forget in the arc
Speaker 1: light doing theater in Los Angeles watching Creed standing balling
Speaker 1: like as I shouted in like happiness and simultaneous sadness.
Speaker 1: But but what this one is, This is a I've
Speaker 1: never told this story because it's really weird. But I'm
Speaker 1: saying that a lot, Brett, I don't love that comfortable.
Speaker 1: But um uh, did you spike my drink? No? No,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to do with your programming. So the time
Speaker 1: I cried most at a movie was watching Precious. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen was its full title again,
Speaker 1: it has a complicated title that because of the shape
Speaker 1: of my memory I do not remember, but Precious, and
Speaker 1: I've seen it a few times. But the first time
Speaker 1: I saw it, I was on a transatlantic flight. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's a medical reality that, like being at altitude,
Speaker 1: makes you more susceptible to emotional, you know, fluctuation. And
Speaker 1: I'd had like three good red wines at this point,
Speaker 1: and I remember I was sitting at like the front
Speaker 1: of listen. It was fancy. I was in premium economy,
Speaker 1: all right, So all the haters who want to come
Speaker 1: at me, I had extra I had that extra half
Speaker 1: foot of room. Plus I was at that bit at
Speaker 1: the front, you know where it's even bigger. Um. And
Speaker 1: so I remember I watched Precious. I started watching it
Speaker 1: and I didn't really have that much expect and I
Speaker 1: started crying about three minutes in, and I didn't It
Speaker 1: was actually it was do you know what it was?
Speaker 1: It was like it was when I was coming back
Speaker 1: to the forwards, I think for Marvel, just at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and my first kid was like three months old, so
Speaker 1: I was super heightened and I was missing him, and
Speaker 1: I started crying three minutes in, and by forty minutes
Speaker 1: in I was actively howling with tears, so much so
Speaker 1: that one of the stewardesses came and asked me if
Speaker 1: I was okay first of all, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm just watching this movie. Ten
Speaker 1: minutes later, bawling more, she actively asked me to stop
Speaker 1: watching the film because I was disturbing the other PASTNSS
Speaker 1: with my crying. So in answer to your question, great,
Speaker 1: Yes I am a crier. I think Press Precis does that.
Speaker 1: That's very good. Do you cry in the real life
Speaker 1: or just at films in the real life? I like
Speaker 1: that we're actually you, and I say, the real life
Speaker 1: in this conversation, like we both know it's a simulation
Speaker 1: to why are we pretending? But yeah, I do know,
Speaker 1: I do, And I'm like, you know it's a cliche,
Speaker 1: but like I will cry at adverts, I will cry.
Speaker 1: The thing that always gets me is like nobility. Nobility
Speaker 1: that makes me like, you know, obviously you know, I
Speaker 1: am a man with boys, So anything that even is
Speaker 1: a sniff my own daddy issues and so anything that's
Speaker 1: a sniff of father son shit, Like I was watching it,
Speaker 1: is It Onward? Is that what? That movie? My God?
Speaker 1: That killed me for an entire weekend? Forget it. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm watch it with my kids. I'm literally
Speaker 1: there like trying to be above them physically so that
Speaker 1: they can't and holding in my silent sobs and just
Speaker 1: my face just streaming with tears once I try and
Speaker 1: keep so I was not to disturb them. Basically, fuck
Speaker 1: say that one was again that one is. It's also
Speaker 1: really underrated, I think probably because there were so many
Speaker 1: kind of good films that kind of came out a
Speaker 1: good animation. But like, weirdly Soul didn't make me cry. Well,
Speaker 1: I tell you why I've talked about it. I really
Speaker 1: love Soul. It's because it's the first Pixar movie that
Speaker 1: isn't that's message is about loving life, is a pro
Speaker 1: life message where nearly all the Pixar films are about
Speaker 1: death and despair and existential. You know that that people
Speaker 1: will die, people will leave, you will die, everything ends.
Speaker 1: That's what all Pixar films about. But then Soul is about.
Speaker 1: Aren't leaves nice? Oh? They see what My takeout from
Speaker 1: Soul was it's okay to cheat and jump the line
Speaker 1: because you won't actually be punished in the act. So
Speaker 1: that was my take out, very different takeaway. Tell me
Speaker 1: it's not true. Tell me the story doesn't tell you that.
Speaker 1: I guess it does. But he does good, he does,
Speaker 1: He does do something good to earn his que jumping.
Speaker 1: Doesn't he to earn the cheat like the factum he
Speaker 1: So everyone from this point onwards is allowed to ask
Speaker 1: for forgiveness, not permission when it comes to cheating mortality. Yes,
Speaker 1: which is why you didn't cry at the end of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also do think like to be much more like
Speaker 1: honest about Soul, which I thought was fantastic. I think
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. I think it's also it's more discursive
Speaker 1: than than button pushing, and I don't like that. I
Speaker 1: don't resent having my buttons pushed by Pixar movies. I
Speaker 1: adore it, like they're just they are masters. They are
Speaker 1: playing the keys like like rap manonoff. But I don't
Speaker 1: think Soul is as interested in doing that. And I
Speaker 1: think it is like that's why it feels like a
Speaker 1: French art movie. On some levels it is. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: because the messages is not as clear as in the
Speaker 1: message is partly achieving your dreams? Isn't the answer, which
Speaker 1: is a very bold thing for a Hollywood film, is
Speaker 1: the opposite of most Hollywood films. And then it's like
Speaker 1: the answer is sort of this, The answer is life
Speaker 1: is leaves. Like on a technical level, I feel like
Speaker 1: that is an ending that got changed six hundred times
Speaker 1: in a good way as they kind of like turned
Speaker 1: it up or turned it down. Because the movie, again
Speaker 1: in a very un Hollywood way, never literally says the
Speaker 1: words oh you weren't meant to be the star, you
Speaker 1: were meant to be the teacher. It like I never actually,
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever put that even in text.
Speaker 1: I think it becomes clear that that there is maybe
Speaker 1: more truth to that, but it's it's not as absolutist
Speaker 1: even as that. So no, I thought it was a
Speaker 1: really subtle movie. I kind of am glad that it
Speaker 1: kind of dropped like on streaming weirdly rather than in cinemas,
Speaker 1: because I don't know a huge audiences would have gone
Speaker 1: to it. But but huge audiences absolutely did come to
Speaker 1: it when it was there on a Saturday night and
Speaker 1: you had Disney Plus, So I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: that's one of those weird I wish all cinemas were
Speaker 1: open and we could all go see all our movies
Speaker 1: in the cinema. But I think I think Soul might
Speaker 1: become more a part of the world psyche because of
Speaker 1: the way it was released than if it had come
Speaker 1: out in theater that weekend. That's fair. What is the
Speaker 1: film that people don't like critically? It's not acclaimed, but
Speaker 1: you love it unconditionally and everyone else is an idiot.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you should edit out the compulsory filmmaker
Speaker 1: caveat that starts this answer, which is bad films, Brett,
Speaker 1: which it made them. You know, it's really impossible to
Speaker 1: make movies and blah. Plus I also, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a ton of movies that I used to love
Speaker 1: that no one did, Like there was a time when
Speaker 1: no one loved After Hours. The school says, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was a time when Ladies and Gentlemen. The Fabulous Stains
Speaker 1: was considered like a ship movie about music rather than
Speaker 1: one of the best movies about music, like or Belly
Speaker 1: was unloved or for example, and I feel it coming
Speaker 1: around right now, the counselor but which I genuinely do
Speaker 1: believe it. But I think the one, the one I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted landed on most was there's a brilliant
Speaker 1: director called Richard Rush. He made a string of genuinely
Speaker 1: kind of classic American kind of cop kind of thriller
Speaker 1: movies in the sixties and into the seventies. The one
Speaker 1: who's most famous for is The Stuntman, the Petro Tool Movie,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely brilliant. If you've not seen it, it's
Speaker 1: just a classic. But the one that's really unloved that
Speaker 1: I do love is called Freebie and the Bean. Have
Speaker 1: you seen Freebie and the Bean? I have not seen
Speaker 1: Freebie in the Bean, and it sounds like a sex film.
Speaker 1: Partly why it's it's about two cops. It's one of
Speaker 1: the like working with Shane Black. Freebie and the Bean
Speaker 1: and the Seven Ups are actually the two kind of
Speaker 1: seventies movies that inspired the kind of eighties into nineties
Speaker 1: cop team up, like Thinking and Bolts as well, but like,
Speaker 1: but Freebie and the Bean is mostly unloved because it's
Speaker 1: James Cahn and Alan Arkin. But the reason it's called
Speaker 1: Freebie and the Bean is James Cahn plays a character
Speaker 1: called Freebean and Alan Arkin plays a character called the
Speaker 1: Bean because he's Mexican, right, So Alan Arkin is playing
Speaker 1: Mexican in this cop movie with absolutely there was no
Speaker 1: layer of irony there. This is just like that was
Speaker 1: the casting decision that was made. It's of its time,
Speaker 1: nineteen early seventies. But yeah, yeah, if I don't suggest
Speaker 1: if you do try and get past that, if you
Speaker 1: don't feel comfortable doing it, but if you do feel
Speaker 1: comfortable just for an hour and a half, for the
Speaker 1: love of Arkin getting past that, then Freebie and the
Speaker 1: Bean is an absolute treat and one that kind of
Speaker 1: all it's really funny. It absolutely you can see all
Speaker 1: of the stuff that became templates for like lead, the
Speaker 1: weapon and Shane stuff, and frankly like double cop action
Speaker 1: movies in general, it's all there and Freebie and the Bean,
Speaker 1: it's all good cop back cop never heard of it,
Speaker 1: or white Cop, other white cop, but playing personal cop,
Speaker 1: which it's not gonna fly. It's not gonna fly these
Speaker 1: days that remakes, it's not gonna work. What is the
Speaker 1: film that you used to love but you've watched it
Speaker 1: recently and for some reason it doesn't hold up for you.
Speaker 1: This one is annoying because there's a movie that I've defended,
Speaker 1: like the last category for many years, and then I
Speaker 1: did watch it for the first time in twenty years
Speaker 1: a few months ago. I only surrealize that I had
Speaker 1: been defending something that was crashingly bad, which is RoboCup three.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Robert Cup three? Robber Cup three is
Speaker 1: the Lake Family friendly one right where it was like
Speaker 1: a PG or a twelve. No, it's the opposite. No,
Speaker 1: I mean it made me PG, but like I don't
Speaker 1: think it. No, isn't it isn't at all. It's very
Speaker 1: interesting because, first of all, Weller doesn't come back for it.
Speaker 1: He's not he's not down for RoboCup three on a
Speaker 1: kind of conceptual level, it is um it's much more ambitious.
Speaker 1: They basically off the back of The Dark Knight Returns,
Speaker 1: the biggest comic book in the late eighties that Frank
Speaker 1: Miller wrote. Frank Miller, who obviously also wrote three hundred
Speaker 1: and frankly, as the years have gone on, we've realized
Speaker 1: is a fairly like polarizing and totalitarian writer. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing that goes through his work. But basically what
Speaker 1: RoboCop three does, Frank Frank Miller wrote it with Fred Decker,
Speaker 1: who co wrote a bunch of stuff with Shane Black,
Speaker 1: who wrote The Monster Squad, who's a brilliant writer. And
Speaker 1: it is basically about it's basically the plot of The
Speaker 1: Dark Knight Returns comic, which is an uprising in Chicago
Speaker 1: of the kind of street punks. And it's got brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant late eighties street punk gangs, which I am a
Speaker 1: sucker for, like The Warriors is in my blood. So
Speaker 1: you see what I'm selling here, you're buying I think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm downloading it now. And I haven't even mentioned that
Speaker 1: there are Ninja androids as well, I know, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like and so and what RoboCop does is
Speaker 1: Robocops a bit like Batman in the Dark, Knight returns
Speaker 1: comic in the he is against these street punks, and
Speaker 1: then he actually joins and kind of leads a street
Speaker 1: punk uprising against OCP and they're new army of Ninja androids. Again,
Speaker 1: almost the perfect pitch. But just take my money, Take
Speaker 1: my money. And I defended it for twenty years and
Speaker 1: then I watched it. This absolutely shit, really good answer
Speaker 1: doesn't hold up. What a shame. What is the film
Speaker 1: that means the most to you? Not necessarily the film
Speaker 1: itself is very good, but the experience you had around
Speaker 1: seeing the film that will always make it special to you.
Speaker 1: I thought a lot about this, and I think it's
Speaker 1: really easy to answer, kind of like the kind of
Speaker 1: no shade on anyone who's ever answered it this way, obviously,
Speaker 1: but like like it's easy to answer about like the
Speaker 1: first film where you got off with someone in the
Speaker 1: cinema or whatever. Actually this is more to your point
Speaker 1: at the beginning, about how how lucky I got to
Speaker 1: come do my job over here. So again, like I've
Speaker 1: said before, I'm not great imagining that I'm giving my
Speaker 1: self permission to do a thing until I've met someone
Speaker 1: that can do it or whatever. And actually in my
Speaker 1: friend group, kind of one of the guys who's really
Speaker 1: inspiring to me in a really low key way, I'll
Speaker 1: say it like that. Alwise it sounds weird, but is
Speaker 1: James Bobin who direct He directed and co created the
Speaker 1: Flight of the Concord series, and he directed the Muppets,
Speaker 1: and that first Muppets movie with Siegel that he did
Speaker 1: is just dentally good and so but it was interesting.
Speaker 1: So Bobin was always a bit more like I always
Speaker 1: found Bobin to be a bit of a groundbreaker. Like
Speaker 1: when I first moved to London in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: Bobin already had like a flat near the bricklayers arms
Speaker 1: in Old Street and there was nothing in Old Street.
Speaker 1: It was literally just an Old Street and James and
Speaker 1: the bricklayers arms. And similarly, like the you know, in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, most British people always lived in West Hollywood
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and in the last fifteen years
Speaker 1: people kind of ended up living on the East Side,
Speaker 1: which is like lost Feelers in Silver Lake, which are
Speaker 1: all hips to areas now. When I first started coming
Speaker 1: to America in like two thousand and four, two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, James had kind of made the leap quicker
Speaker 1: than everyone else because of concords, because of at that
Speaker 1: point it was because of concords, because we were both
Speaker 1: from TV and stuff like that. And I remember going
Speaker 1: to see Napoleon Dynamite, and then later I met James
Speaker 1: for a flaming Margarita at elkom Padre on Sunset Strip,
Speaker 1: which is a very dangerous drink because it is on
Speaker 1: fire and it is also viscous and sugary, and so
Speaker 1: the sugar can take effect a bit like napalm if
Speaker 1: you don't drink it correctly, in that it sticks to
Speaker 1: you and it's still on fire. So just as an aside,
Speaker 1: just watch out for a flaming Margharita. But anyway, we
Speaker 1: sat and we were talking and like, and James said
Speaker 1: something really interesting which really resonated for me, which was
Speaker 1: just this idea that and this is absolutely like to
Speaker 1: Napoleon Dynamite's credit. But the reason Napoleon Dynamite means so
Speaker 1: much to me is it's the first movie where I
Speaker 1: had sat there with a friend and we both went
Speaker 1: we could probably do that. I don't think we could
Speaker 1: do apocalypse now. I don't know how we get to that,
Speaker 1: but like and hopefully you know, And now I would say, like,
Speaker 1: I hope myself and my contemporaries can get to that,
Speaker 1: and I hope I haven't whatever and apocalypse now and
Speaker 1: me whatever it is. But like then that was the
Speaker 1: Napoleon Dynamite. Means so much to me because I think
Speaker 1: it was the evolutionary step I needed in that conversation
Speaker 1: with Bobin to go, you know, we fucking could do that.
Speaker 1: We absolutely could do that. Let's let's lock in and
Speaker 1: do it. And so so I think that's my house.
Speaker 1: I love answer so much. That's fucking great. And Bobin
Speaker 1: made the Muppets, which is just phenomenal. It's actually it's
Speaker 1: one of those ones. It's a bit actually weirdly, a
Speaker 1: bit like the Paddington movies, but also like that's not
Speaker 1: to suggest it's just in the kids genre, but like
Speaker 1: sometimes people make an actually perfect movie and it's virtually impossible.
Speaker 1: It's virtually impossible to do, but everyone has been on
Speaker 1: the page so clearly and it's so talented that everything
Speaker 1: moves in the right direction, and it feels like every
Speaker 1: single choice that was made was the right one, And
Speaker 1: I really do feel like Boben's Mukeet movie is that Yeah,
Speaker 1: quite jealous, deeply jealous. Frankly, it was you was your
Speaker 1: fault for having that bloody conversation. If I hadn't so
Speaker 1: comically burnt my lips, he would never have been inspired.
Speaker 1: What's the film that you most relate to? My honest
Speaker 1: answer is terrifying. The film I most relate to is
Speaker 1: Uncut Gems. Incredible answer, because just like the constant juggle
Speaker 1: of ant like, it really reminds me of trying to
Speaker 1: be a parent and have a job at the same time,
Speaker 1: like and I have a life and have friends and
Speaker 1: a relationship and all of that stuff. It's just like, like, so, yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: like either the last ten minutes of Good Fellas or
Speaker 1: the whole of Uncut Gems often feels like the movie
Speaker 1: I most relate to. I've got a huge respect for
Speaker 1: you for that answer. That is a great answer, and
Speaker 1: I totally get what you mean. What do other people say?
Speaker 1: That's one of those ones where I'm like, wait, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember what other people have said. People Often
Speaker 1: it's often people go, I don't know what you mean,
Speaker 1: and I always thinks, shut up, because you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, you've absolutely nailed it. Here we go, what's
Speaker 1: the sexiest film you see? Because you did this in
Speaker 1: a different order, you'd skip through it. You're like, no
Speaker 1: one wants to know that. I think it's sexy, and
Speaker 1: I was really comfortable with that. I know, I was
Speaker 1: holding off for the good stuff. I mean, this one
Speaker 1: is that thing of like I think, kind of for me,
Speaker 1: I don't really find films that sexy anymore. I find like,
Speaker 1: there are moments that are sexy, and you know, but
Speaker 1: I think kind of the sexiest films are probably the
Speaker 1: sex ones that you watch or the moments of sex
Speaker 1: in movies when you are like an adolescent. And there
Speaker 1: are two that really spring to mind. And by the way,
Speaker 1: again I've already proven my basic credentials. So what I'm
Speaker 1: really just going to tell you is two moments in movies.
Speaker 1: When I was twelve, when I saw Boobs. I know,
Speaker 1: but but so the first one I remember was well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there were before it, but like
Speaker 1: the two that stick out were Trading Places, Magnificent, the
Speaker 1: classic mirror our door closing scene, and of course then
Speaker 1: later on at the party, the absolutely, I mean the
Speaker 1: definition of gratuousness. And then the other one is a
Speaker 1: movie that like it's one of those movies so not
Speaker 1: spoken of and I don't even think, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you can find it anymore, but that sometimes you
Speaker 1: kind of question if it I don't know if you
Speaker 1: have those movies the way you question whether it even existed.
Speaker 1: So there is a late eighties I think it's late
Speaker 1: acies maybe early nineties movie version of Martin Amos's The
Speaker 1: Rachel papers Man with in this guy and Dexter Flectser
Speaker 1: and National Treasure Dexter Fletcher coming coming off the back
Speaker 1: of press Gang, huge, huge answer, and that like weirdly
Speaker 1: like kind of that felt like the sexiest movie because
Speaker 1: it kind of felt like that is a sexy movie
Speaker 1: a year and a half ahead of where I was
Speaker 1: in my sexuality was, where The Rachel papers Were was,
Speaker 1: and it felt felt weirdly real, you know, like to
Speaker 1: a degree that you would fucking never get married with
Speaker 1: a movie that's about like a mainstream movie that's about
Speaker 1: eighteen year olds, because it doesn't positive like kids or
Speaker 1: something or in any way in any way frankly destructive. Again,
Speaker 1: it has more of the feel of a kind of
Speaker 1: French movie or like it's just more explicit physically than
Speaker 1: it needs to be, but in doing so feels much
Speaker 1: more honest, and I think that's why it kind of
Speaker 1: clicked in with me. It's actually someone messaged me talking
Speaker 1: about the Rachel paper and said, have you seen this?
Speaker 1: It really holds up. It's an incredible It's a really
Speaker 1: grain enough incredible film, and my memory of it is
Speaker 1: very positive. I have no idea if it's wildly it
Speaker 1: might be wildly problematic. Now I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: certainly thought it was. Yeah. I mean, I seem to
Speaker 1: recall that he's supposed to be a bit of a
Speaker 1: cunt any, Like, he's definitely an Alfie esque character in
Speaker 1: it in that like, I don't think we are supposed
Speaker 1: to totally root for his late teen womanizing necessarily, but
Speaker 1: it has like it has even has a quote that
Speaker 1: like which is probably I think is definitely from the
Speaker 1: book through the movie, but like, um, there's a great
Speaker 1: smug line that Dexter Fletcher's character says that I kind
Speaker 1: of still hold to be true, which is that he
Speaker 1: says grandly to Ione Sky he goes parties are meant
Speaker 1: to be received and never given. I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: a really good line. I'll take that. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's not true either. I like it seems that
Speaker 1: that kind of that speaks to me. Yeah, really good answer.
Speaker 1: Let's see how you get on with this subcategory. Subcategory
Speaker 1: is traveling, bone is worrying? Why ones film you founder rousing?
Speaker 1: You weren't sure you should? That one is easy actually
Speaker 1: for me, right, I mean not easy to talk about
Speaker 1: Brett obviously. I think it's basically like the entire over
Speaker 1: if you will of Brian de Palmer. Really good answer,
Speaker 1: what a thoughtful answer. He absolutely so. I mean not
Speaker 1: all of his movies, like I will not count the
Speaker 1: untouchables in this or on Firevanities, but like if you're
Speaker 1: talking about, like you know, Body Double or stuff like that,
Speaker 1: from from all the way through from being a teenager
Speaker 1: kind of to present day, he does this really weird
Speaker 1: thing with sexuality which makes me feel queasy, but I
Speaker 1: think is genuinely sexy as well. Like Melanie Griffiths at
Speaker 1: like in Body Double is the exact example, because I
Speaker 1: can't even quite tell in a post you know, kind
Speaker 1: of enlightened world, she seems to have a lot of agency,
Speaker 1: and yeah, like it's he I think he works in
Speaker 1: an area of sexuality, male sexuality as well, and male
Speaker 1: gaze principally that is honest and scary and queasy and
Speaker 1: makes me feel weird. Well, he fits in there, He's like,
Speaker 1: because David Finch always says audiences are perverts, and Hitchcock
Speaker 1: thought audiences were perverts, and Deparma is like Hitchcock with
Speaker 1: no censorship. He's like, yeah, audience is a perfect and
Speaker 1: I'm going to make you feel like a pervert. And
Speaker 1: here's some really pervy shots, some pervy scary stuff. And
Speaker 1: but what's really interesting for no good reason. I just
Speaker 1: finished a five hundred page book about the making of
Speaker 1: bonfires and vanities. Oh yeah, it's called The Devil's Candy, right,
Speaker 1: so it is. Yeah, have you read it. I've got it,
Speaker 1: and I'm desperate to get into it. It is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very weird to read a book for three weeks
Speaker 1: about a movie you saw once and you're never going
Speaker 1: to rewatch, and not because it's the Room or something
Speaker 1: like that, because it's like but but you do get
Speaker 1: a real insight into like, I don't know how weird
Speaker 1: Deparma thinks his depictions or his worldview even is like
Speaker 1: you get a really interesting like it's hard to come down,
Speaker 1: and by the way, maybe you don't have to come
Speaker 1: down anywhere, and maybe he doesn't either, definitely as an artist,
Speaker 1: but like there's definitely an element of trolling, and there's
Speaker 1: definitely an element of like, I don't understand what the
Speaker 1: fuss is all about, and like between those two things
Speaker 1: is definitely where he fluctuates fascinating. I'm going to read that,
Speaker 1: what is objectively the greatest film of all time? Oh? God,
Speaker 1: do you know what? I think? This one was the
Speaker 1: toughest question because it's a really difficult one to say
Speaker 1: anything particularly interesting about right in a weird way or
Speaker 1: stony like my objectively, I feel like Cassablanca and Sunset
Speaker 1: Boulevard are the best movies of all times. Don't come
Speaker 1: up enough. No, Oh, I just thought I was hitting
Speaker 1: like the no and listen, ninety percent of people say
Speaker 1: The Godfather and it drives me mad. Casablanca is better
Speaker 1: than the Godfather. Oh, casmancer Is, I mean like Hotel
Speaker 1: Atomis is essentially a very very very low rent garage
Speaker 1: cover version of Casa Blanca. Casi Blancer is is just pleasant,
Speaker 1: but like, I don't know, Like, yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: those are probably the two objective ones. Like my head
Speaker 1: goes to RoboCop as well, because I do feel like
Speaker 1: that is. I know that sounds insane to go like
Speaker 1: a Blanca sunset Boulevard RoboCop, but I do feel like
Speaker 1: RoboCop is another one of those movies that for me,
Speaker 1: every decision is absolutely perfect for the movie, in the
Speaker 1: same way that I kind of feel like it's so
Speaker 1: hard to say objectively about more modern movies because they
Speaker 1: haven't existed on the timeline for as long. But like,
Speaker 1: but I think there will be blood will end up
Speaker 1: in the top ten movies objectively of all time. And
Speaker 1: I would even say that something like Silence like Dammi
Speaker 1: and Silence of the kind of edges near there, because again,
Speaker 1: Science of the Lambs is like is as close to
Speaker 1: perfection filmmaking wise as I personally can imagine. But you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's just let's just rest at Casablanca and know
Speaker 1: that we're right. Great, great, great, What is the film
Speaker 1: you could or have? What's the most over and over again.
Speaker 1: I mean, this one is very hard to not answer.
Speaker 1: Die Hard, but I don't even know if it's true.
Speaker 1: Like there's just like there is a rotation, right, It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the whank bank of your cinematic comfort nexus,
Speaker 1: and it in it is like is RoboCop is The
Speaker 1: Warriors is like and so it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: take one out of the carousel, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like yeah, but it's also weird because in
Speaker 1: that bank you get things that aren't necessarily the best
Speaker 1: movie by the filmmaker. I have sinned The Departed half
Speaker 1: drunk forty times maybe or parts thereof, because if it's
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock and it's on a cable channel in the
Speaker 1: hotel room, whatever it is, I'm gonna watch some of
Speaker 1: The Departed till the end, you know. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of yeah, yeah, so And it's the same with actually
Speaker 1: another one that's good for that is true romance. Like
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the best version of Tarantino on screen,
Speaker 1: but I do think it might be. It weirdly might
Speaker 1: be the Tarantino adjacent movie I have watched most very interesting,
Speaker 1: as we've already done the caveat, and neither of us
Speaker 1: like to be negative, but very quickly, what's the worst
Speaker 1: film you ever seen? I have a really trolling answer,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to like say it and then say
Speaker 1: a different one. So I think The Joker is the
Speaker 1: worst movie. No, no, no, I didn't say that. I'm
Speaker 1: going to push through. Like. The thing I hate most
Speaker 1: is like, I like stupid movies for clever people. I
Speaker 1: think that's where cinema is its best on. What I
Speaker 1: really dislike is supposedly clever movies for stupid people. And
Speaker 1: so things like Crash like not the not the Cronenberg
Speaker 1: Crash um anyone, Haggitts Crash not Cronaberg crash like. Um,
Speaker 1: those are the movies that I kind of that I
Speaker 1: find to be the worst, which is really unfair, but
Speaker 1: it's personal because I find them to be falsely intellectual
Speaker 1: or emotionally in a blackmailing yeah and again and and
Speaker 1: and inauthentic and just um yeah, I just I find
Speaker 1: them too. It's I feel kind of the same with
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the things that do function
Speaker 1: as awards movies, not to the degree that I think
Speaker 1: it makes them the worst movies ever, but like you know,
Speaker 1: like a twentieth century biograph, you know, Buyo pick of
Speaker 1: like a semi unknown World War two white Posh War hero. Like, like,
Speaker 1: if you're hitting all those buttons for me, that is
Speaker 1: that I'm going to taste gun metal soon after. Do
Speaker 1: you want to say any any more about Joker or
Speaker 1: it just fits that category. I'm just gonna like, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna leave it there and all the intell motherfuckers
Speaker 1: that it was made for. You just come at me.
Speaker 1: You you you're in comedy when the funniest films, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a long time. I don't know if anyone's ever
Speaker 1: said that, And it's a long time. It's I'm even
Speaker 1: comedy at Jason mature comedy. What's the film that made
Speaker 1: you laughter most? You know, what's really weird? Like I
Speaker 1: do actually think the first four app movie might be
Speaker 1: might be one of the funniest movies of all time.
Speaker 1: But the thing that I think informed my humor in
Speaker 1: the Weird Beliegue is there is dirty rotten scoundrels um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like there's just something about the humor in that movie.
Speaker 1: And look, there are a million other films, but like
Speaker 1: there's just I don't like, I don't naturally remember lines.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember my own lines. I have a
Speaker 1: producer who holds onto every draft of a script, but
Speaker 1: I do because I have this weird memory, as I've said,
Speaker 1: and so I don't remember lines that I've kicked out.
Speaker 1: It actually makes me like a dream to collaborate with
Speaker 1: because I'm never precious because I literally can't remember who
Speaker 1: wrote what line. But I do remember the lines from
Speaker 1: of and the whole of that movie. I like that.
Speaker 1: That's one that's just like a proper hit me at
Speaker 1: the right time, scorched into you know, the my kind
Speaker 1: of comedy Souls. You've been extraordinary. This has been absolutely brilliant. However,
Speaker 1: when robots took their rightful place and you were killed,
Speaker 1: but you didn't remember, you didn't experience being killed because
Speaker 1: they were kind enough to put you in a simulation
Speaker 1: where you were sat at Lake Cuomo and you were
Speaker 1: sipping on flaming margharitas, which didn't burn you because you
Speaker 1: were in this mulation and you were looking out at
Speaker 1: the sun. That was the sign. You were like, my
Speaker 1: lips are sticking and my whole place is on fire
Speaker 1: and it's still good. Yeah, you're looking out of the sun,
Speaker 1: and then your brain much ghost Rider with a cock
Speaker 1: and a bath road, much like it did in the
Speaker 1: Meba records eleven years ago, which maybe has been a
Speaker 1: simulation ever since your brain stopped and you were dead. Now,
Speaker 1: I was knocking about Judgment Day carrying a coffin looking
Speaker 1: for you where it's Drue gone. I ain't seen him
Speaker 1: since he went. I haven't seen him in years and
Speaker 1: years and years, and I find you rotted in the ground.
Speaker 1: Mess everywhere. Animals have been eating you. It's awful, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is no way for him to be
Speaker 1: so I get you, but you're stuck to bits. There's
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff you have to chop you up
Speaker 1: into laser little bits. I stuff you in this coffin.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely rounded in the coffin, a lot more of
Speaker 1: you than I was expecting, very little room in there,
Speaker 1: and enough room to slide one DVD in the side
Speaker 1: for you to take across to the other side. And
Speaker 1: on the other side it's movie night every night. What
Speaker 1: film are you taking to show the people of heaven
Speaker 1: when it's your movie night? He really turned this question
Speaker 1: into like a high pressure moment. I would say, like,
Speaker 1: maybe like too much pressure. I honestly think I would
Speaker 1: take them Repo Man. I think Repo Man would be
Speaker 1: a really fun DVD to have to watch every single night,
Speaker 1: because I think it's a very rich text and I
Speaker 1: think we would get more and more out of it
Speaker 1: as every day went by. And I don't think Alex
Speaker 1: Cox has received his duew in heaven and hence I'm
Speaker 1: the man who bring it there. Yeah, you're the first
Speaker 1: person to bring it and that's that's fantastic, fantastic, Drew Piers.
Speaker 1: Before we say goodbye, is there anything you would like
Speaker 1: people to look out for, or to watch or to
Speaker 1: listen to of yours? I will say the most cliche thing,
Speaker 1: which is like, as soon as you have a vaccine
Speaker 1: and you feel comfortable, as much as your living room
Speaker 1: is also comfortable, please you know if you can venture
Speaker 1: out to cinemas as well, because because we need the
Speaker 1: widest bread of movies being made and widest bread the filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and we need cinema to continue outside of the home
Speaker 1: as well as in in order to do that. I
Speaker 1: hope that wasn't too pious. Literally the only synthesis thing
Speaker 1: I've said in two hours so that you have been
Speaker 1: an absolute treat. Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 1: Good luck with your projects. Good day to you, sir,
Speaker 1: good luck with all of yours. Thank you now. So
Speaker 1: that was episode one hundred and forty three. Head over
Speaker 1: to patreon dot com forward sasprect Goldstein for the extra
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of chat and film School Secrets video Withdrew Everything.
Speaker 1: Go to Apple Podcasts, give us a five star rating,
Speaker 1: and don't write about the show, right about the film
Speaker 1: that means the most to you and why I do
Speaker 1: read them. I love them and they're great and I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thank you very much for everyone for listening.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Drew for doing the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for scrupis pipping the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Buddy Piece for producing it. Thanks to Akas for hosting it.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics, based a Lading
Speaker 1: for the photography. Come and join me next week for
Speaker 1: another cracker of a guest. And that is it for now.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, have a lovely week and please be
Speaker 1: excellent to each other.