Speaker 1: Get a Pete Helly here, welcome to you Ain't Seen
Speaker 1: Nothing Yet? The movie podcast where I chat to a
Speaker 1: movie lover about a classic or beloved movie they haven't
Speaker 1: quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest
Speaker 1: acting Royalty David Wenham all below.
Speaker 2: I want to stay here with you.
Speaker 3: To the jobble, why hate snake Shocked whil they couldn't
Speaker 3: happening right now?
Speaker 4: You ain't seen nothing yet?
Speaker 5: What a huge David. You ain't seen nothing yet, the
Speaker 5: great David.
Speaker 1: I have been a massive as all cinematic fans are
Speaker 1: of David Wenham all the way back to see Change
Speaker 1: of course on the smaller screen, but he's certainly graduated
Speaker 1: not long after that to the big screen in great
Speaker 1: films such as.
Speaker 5: The Boys Getting Square, which a film will.
Speaker 1: Come up today because he's got to follow up to
Speaker 1: that called Spit, which is in cinemas now as this
Speaker 1: goes out. It is a fantastic follow up and one
Speaker 1: that I wasn't expecting. I was David was on the
Speaker 1: project a few years ago.
Speaker 5: We got chatting.
Speaker 1: I told him how much I love Getting Square and
Speaker 1: he said, funnily enough, we've just confirmed that we're doing
Speaker 1: a sequel based on his great character Johnny spitz Fortiri,
Speaker 1: who I think is one of the great comedic creations
Speaker 1: on screen. To be honest, he's such a funny character
Speaker 1: and the movie is great. We're going to talk to
Speaker 1: David about that. Your name from Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: Mullan Rouge, Elvis Parraz to the Caribbee and younger or
Speaker 1: folks with kids will know him from Peter Rabbit three
Speaker 1: hundred and he's always made the big films. He's always
Speaker 1: made films in Australia as well, such as Line three Dollars,
Speaker 1: The Proposition, one of my all time favorites, Goldstone, so
Speaker 1: many he is literally can I say literally?
Speaker 5: Well, he's acting royalty, He really is.
Speaker 1: He's up there at the top astelong of ossie actors
Speaker 1: of all time and I'm bloody stoked to be hanging
Speaker 1: with him today.
Speaker 6: Hi. I'm David Wynham and my three favorite films today
Speaker 6: are Wake and Fright Now.
Speaker 4: Vanity is spawned by fear.
Speaker 6: Here are the dogs and rats in the Rats.
Speaker 5: And she wants to run, but she's being stymied by mcinda.
Speaker 5: He reckons he would be better than her. And I
Speaker 5: just happened to leak it.
Speaker 6: To the Herald, and up until yesterday, I had never
Speaker 6: seen the movie Mash.
Speaker 7: Through the horny.
Speaker 6: Fog, see visions of the things to be, the pains
Speaker 6: that are with.
Speaker 5: Held for me, I realizon.
Speaker 8: I can't see.
Speaker 7: That suitside is painless.
Speaker 4: It brings on many changes, and I can take.
Speaker 1: On it if I please, Yes, And we'll get to
Speaker 1: that song certainly throughout the chat.
Speaker 5: Today.
Speaker 1: There are very few films that have a legacy quite
Speaker 1: like Robert Otman's nineteen seventy war comedy Mash. Set in
Speaker 1: a field hospital during the Korean War, we follow surgeons
Speaker 1: Hawkeye Donald Sutherland and trapper Elliott Gould, who navigate the
Speaker 1: horrors of their day to day by boozing and cracking wise.
Speaker 1: When Major Margaret haul of Hann arrives siding with air
Speaker 1: nemesis Robert Deval's major Frank Burns, Hawkeye and Troda decided one,
Speaker 1: if not both must go.
Speaker 5: Based on a book by Richard.
Speaker 1: Trotter from a screenplay by Ring Lardner Junior, for which
Speaker 1: he won the film's only oscar. More on that later,
Speaker 1: it was nominated for Best Film, losing to another war film,
Speaker 1: Patton Oltman lost to Pattern's Franklin Shaffner for Best Director,
Speaker 1: Sally Callaman nominated for her portrayal of lips hulahand lost
Speaker 1: to Helen Hayes. In Airport, it also lost Danford B.
Speaker 1: Green the director Sorry the Editor also missing out. But
Speaker 1: of course, the movie's legacy comes in the form of
Speaker 1: the TV sitcom it created, much to the chagrin of
Speaker 1: the late Robert Oltman. Mash is considered one of the
Speaker 1: great American sitcoms and also one of the longest lasting
Speaker 1: TV series, compiling of two hundred and fifty one episodes
Speaker 1: runn fromnineteen seventy two to nineteen eighty three, with the
Speaker 1: Mash finale remaining the single most watched episode of a
Speaker 1: broadcast TV show ever.
Speaker 5: David Wennan, did you grow up in a Mash diet
Speaker 5: in your house?
Speaker 6: Uh? No, No, but strange enough that the song suicide
Speaker 6: is painless? It seemed to be everywhere when I was
Speaker 6: growing up, and the only time I did see Mash,
Speaker 6: I think I'm the last of seven kids. Maybe one
Speaker 6: of my sisters used to watch it and I'd hear
Speaker 6: the song. The only thing I remember are the helicopters,
Speaker 6: which I was obsessed by as a kid because they
Speaker 6: looked like I love the shape of them, the fact
Speaker 6: that there was this glass bubble that looked like the
Speaker 6: eye of a fly that only the pilot and one
Speaker 6: other person could sit in, and then this very thin
Speaker 6: skeletal structure that was like a praying mantis that could
Speaker 6: just hover and twist on a dime and then fly off.
Speaker 6: That I was obsessed with. But the show itself I
Speaker 6: didn't really come across until later on.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, it wasn't really in my house by the
Speaker 1: time I was born in seventy five. It was around yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was always almost like cricket during summer. It
Speaker 1: was always a round in the background somewhere, you know,
Speaker 1: and I a millie my house could It's usually in
Speaker 1: the foreground during summer. But I was more at that stage,
Speaker 1: probably UK comedies, Young.
Speaker 5: Ones and that stuff, and America.
Speaker 1: It was family ties and cheers by the time I
Speaker 1: was really starting to get into into watching TV. But
Speaker 1: it is like there's so many people don't even know
Speaker 1: there's a movie. When I discussed or mentioned that you're
Speaker 1: coming on, oh my films, he hasn't seen. That's a
Speaker 1: mash And a few people went to the TV series.
Speaker 6: It's going to take it forever.
Speaker 1: So I it's and I hadn't seen it, so I'm
Speaker 1: really glad I can tick this one off from myself.
Speaker 1: Robert Otins nineteen seventy mash. We've got a lot to
Speaker 1: talk about, including the film that you have out now speak.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to that very soon, which I loved. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about your three favorite films, three Aussie films,
Speaker 1: as it were, Wake in Fright.
Speaker 5: Of course you were part of the TV series the remake.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you don't bring that up. We can just park that,
Speaker 6: I think and move on.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that, but I mean it is a tough
Speaker 1: thing to follow the original. The original film we covered
Speaker 1: on this podcast with Ross and Noble and him being
Speaker 1: from Newcastle in England, he got quite a shock of
Speaker 1: the film and also but he also said that it
Speaker 1: rung true for him, like he could. He's a non drinker,
Speaker 1: so he's been around comedy, you know, and backstage and
Speaker 1: around festivals, around a bit of a drinking culture in
Speaker 1: comedy surprise, and he could understand, he said, he could
Speaker 1: actually quite understand. You can understand it. He knows what
Speaker 1: it's like to be around people drinking and that point
Speaker 1: of the evening where things feel like they're about to
Speaker 1: tip out of control.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Terrifying, Yeah, absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 5: It really is.
Speaker 6: I remember the first time I saw it was Anthony
Speaker 6: Buckley who produced one of the very first things I did.
Speaker 6: Years and years and years ago. I did a television
Speaker 6: series called The Heroes, which was based on a true
Speaker 6: story of a fishing boat called the christ and a
Speaker 6: bunch of Australian soldiers dressed up as Indonesian fishermen, got
Speaker 6: on a boat, went into Singapore Harbor and attached limpid
Speaker 6: minds to the naval vessels in there and blew up
Speaker 6: all these vessels and then came back and they survived
Speaker 6: the first mission. They did it again. So Anthony Buckley
Speaker 6: produced this thing called The Heroes. It was one of
Speaker 6: the first things I did with He goes really a
Speaker 6: collected cast. Cameron Dado, Jason Donovan who was going out
Speaker 6: with Kylie at the time. Wow, and Kylie would come
Speaker 6: up and she'd stay with us up you know, in
Speaker 6: northern Queensland, and one day I saw her washing Jason's clothes.
Speaker 6: So there we go.
Speaker 5: The anecdotes have started here.
Speaker 3: We go we had you.
Speaker 6: Yeah try now I'm going to Yeah. I think I'm
Speaker 6: going to be canceled very quickly if I go. And
Speaker 6: then one of my favorite actors of all time, a
Speaker 6: great Australian actor called John Hargraves, was in it. Yes,
Speaker 6: so I mind him for information. But Anthony Buckley, who
Speaker 6: produced that, found a copy. Because Waken Fright disappeared for years,
Speaker 6: there was never a print. Somebody found it and Anthony
Speaker 6: Buckley took it upon himself to get that sort of
Speaker 6: fixed up on whatever and he got it eventually re released.
Speaker 6: I was at the first screening of that in at
Speaker 6: the not the Valhalla, the chaven Well in Paddington for
Speaker 6: the very first screening of that re release. I remember
Speaker 6: when I saw it, I just blew my mind. I
Speaker 6: just thought, that is the greatest Australian film I have
Speaker 6: ever seen. It was it was shocking, It was like
Speaker 6: it was visceral. I felt that film on so many
Speaker 6: different levels. The performances were just yeah, brilliant. From Chip's
Speaker 6: Rafferty playing Jock this nightmarish policeman.
Speaker 1: Drink filming or not long after filming, and the drinking
Speaker 1: because he was drinking for real.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's very thirsty man. He held it very well. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and you could see it in his eyes. It was like, yeah,
Speaker 6: that guy, Yeah, there was power within his eyes. Who
Speaker 6: else who jack one.
Speaker 5: Of his first jack first?
Speaker 6: And that incredible sequence on the back of the truck
Speaker 6: when they go reshooting at night and it's like, you'd
Speaker 6: never be able to do that now, there's no you know,
Speaker 6: O H and S would just never allow you to
Speaker 6: do it in a million years. It was so dangerous,
Speaker 6: but you felt that danger. You thought, oh my god,
Speaker 6: these guys they're on the back of this truck in
Speaker 6: the middle of the night, only with a spotlight going
Speaker 6: I don't know, maybe eighty kilometers one hundred kilometers over
Speaker 6: these things with rifles shooting real ammunition, and you just thought,
Speaker 6: oh my god, any bump, any turn of that wheel
Speaker 6: and they're going to go yeahs over.
Speaker 1: So you hear about those nineteen seventies Australian filmmaking George
Speaker 1: Miller Man Max and the outlaw nature of it, and
Speaker 1: it's great to hear about it. Is there part of
Speaker 1: you that would would have loved to have experienced that
Speaker 1: or you've got quite happy to go No, I like
Speaker 1: that sets as safe in that.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 6: Look, I've been been around for a little while now,
Speaker 6: so yeah, I began when it was relatively unsafe, and
Speaker 6: I've got to be honest, I quite liked the Maverick approach.
Speaker 6: A little bit. A little bit of danger, I think
Speaker 6: is not a bad thing, just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing we're talking about today acertainly has that,
Speaker 1: I think in spades. A Year of the Dogs, Tipic,
Speaker 1: this is the AFL it is, then Footscray Fretty Club documentary,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 6: And the only reason, well the reason I picked out
Speaker 6: it was like, you know, you've I didn't do my homework.
Speaker 6: I've got to be honest, Pete. I know you asked
Speaker 6: me a while ago to pick my three best and
Speaker 6: I concentrated just on the film that I had to watch,
Speaker 6: and then I received this email only about half an
Speaker 6: hour agoing.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, you have the rewatched these with But by
Speaker 1: the way, you said something to me which blew my
Speaker 1: mind before we started recording. You said that you were
Speaker 1: very rarely seen a film twice.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's not too many I can think off the
Speaker 6: top of my head. Don't look now is one that
Speaker 6: I definitely have, only because I happened to have been
Speaker 6: in places where I was playing. So I did watch
Speaker 6: it again. No, very really, I often I can't think
Speaker 6: of any others off the top of my head, and
Speaker 6: there's no red.
Speaker 5: You had those comfort films because people off the top
Speaker 5: I no.
Speaker 7: I do.
Speaker 6: The only things that I have seen more than once
Speaker 6: is you know, I've got two daughters. One there's now
Speaker 6: twenty one sixteen, and Princess Bride is one that they
Speaker 6: would have seen like dozens of times. So I just
Speaker 6: pop in every now and again and catch catch scenes there.
Speaker 6: But otherwise, no, I don't seek out films that I've seen.
Speaker 5: So a Year of the Dogs?
Speaker 1: Why why?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 6: Okay, I was thinking that there's there's a whole heap
Speaker 6: of films that I love, but I can't honestly just pick. Okay,
Speaker 6: these my top three. Difficult. But what I do know,
Speaker 6: and what I can tell you is that the films
Speaker 6: that I gravitate towards are documentaries. I find it really,
Speaker 6: really difficult to watch narrative feature films or television because
Speaker 6: it's nearly impossible for me to turn off my critical
Speaker 6: faculty and it and it's very frustrating. So I watched
Speaker 6: the films and it's not just performance, as I see
Speaker 6: the mechanics behind it, and I just wish I could
Speaker 6: switch that off so I could just have it as
Speaker 6: a piece of entertainment, but I can't. So yeah, frustrating.
Speaker 6: So that's why documentaries, for me, they're surprising and they
Speaker 6: can affect me and move me and humor me like
Speaker 6: a feature film. Can't like that one that I picked,
Speaker 6: And as I say, yeah, I've only seen that film once.
Speaker 6: Year of the Dogs when it was released in I
Speaker 6: think nineteen ninety seven, the year after that year that
Speaker 6: it was filmed in, but I remember it being it
Speaker 6: just drew me in. I love AFL, you know, an
Speaker 6: ambassador for the Swans. But that year was incredible for
Speaker 6: Footscray and the draft. You couldn't script that any better.
Speaker 6: And then the change of the coach. Within the season,
Speaker 6: one of the young players got cancer. One of their
Speaker 6: great players, you know, was forced to retire. The two
Speaker 6: fans that they followed through that year. The passion and
Speaker 6: the distress that had caused these two ladies who you know,
Speaker 6: the dogs were their life. It's like it was it's
Speaker 6: Shakespearean and then as well, I remembered so clearly because
Speaker 6: Terry Wallace halfway through the season took over the Dogs
Speaker 6: famously and that brilliant line that he said at the
Speaker 6: time berating the players, and he said, you know, if
Speaker 6: you do that again, I'm going to spew up. And
Speaker 6: then he was a possibility to take over as coach
Speaker 6: from Rodney Eid at the Swan's. And I remember, not
Speaker 6: long after I saw that film, somebody painted this banner
Speaker 6: that they took to the to the Swans. Collis was reached.
Speaker 6: Collis was the chairman of this ons and it said Collis,
Speaker 6: if you choose Wallace, I'll spew you up.
Speaker 1: I was chatting with just this week actually, Bob Murphy,
Speaker 1: Bulldog's Legend and they're now doing Bricky Radio came on
Speaker 1: this podcast to do Butchercasid in the Sundance Kid.
Speaker 5: We both love that.
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a kind of a feeling that's
Speaker 1: gone viral online about Rocketed in the commentary box and
Speaker 1: he's going crazy, he's going mentally, he's get.
Speaker 5: Him half and then or the other coach. You go, okay,
Speaker 5: settle down, mate, we can't think, we can't think.
Speaker 1: He goes, oh sorry, sorry, fucking get him off and
Speaker 1: he Bob said to me, he has a crazy thing
Speaker 1: is that wasn't a final?
Speaker 5: That would that be round six practice match?
Speaker 6: Appreciate I actually within within the club. It's relatively well
Speaker 6: known fact. And I wasn't an ambassador of the Swans
Speaker 6: at that stage, but i'd followed them pretty much since
Speaker 6: they'd moved up from South Melbourne. And it was Michael
Speaker 6: O locke very first match and I was a little
Speaker 6: bit after actually after his first match, and he berated
Speaker 6: him at a during a postmatch press conference and Rodney,
Speaker 6: if you're listening, I know that you know this story.
Speaker 6: And I apologize, but he berated him and I wrote,
Speaker 6: I'd never done this before in my life. It's like
Speaker 6: it just got me because I could see the potential
Speaker 6: of this guy, that Michael Lochlin, who did go on
Speaker 6: to be a champion of the club. And I wrote
Speaker 6: this letter to him and I said, you know, miss
Speaker 6: bah bah Baha. I said, look, I'm an actor and
Speaker 6: I know what I do. It relies on confidence, and
Speaker 6: you need to have confidence in order I need to
Speaker 6: have confidence in order to deliver my best. The same
Speaker 6: thing I'm sure would happen with a football player if
Speaker 6: you instill confidence in that person, they're going to be
Speaker 6: able to realize their best. But if you tell somebody
Speaker 6: they're bad enough for long enough, it becomes a self
Speaker 6: fulfilling prophecy. And I went through all the different moments.
Speaker 6: Bah bah bah it hit a chord. Rodney, to his
Speaker 6: great credit, typed a letter back which I subse quantly framed,
Speaker 6: and every now and again it was taken into the club.
Speaker 6: But he addressed every one of my points, to his
Speaker 6: great credit, and he said, you know, I take it
Speaker 6: on board, blah blah blah, and I make sure that
Speaker 6: I do. You know, positive reinforcement in future.
Speaker 5: That is great to hear, because you know, you hate.
Speaker 6: I know we're not talking about film here.
Speaker 5: You know we love that.
Speaker 1: But we'll move on because we will move on the
Speaker 1: politics in a second, because rockety yeah, you hate for
Speaker 1: these things to go violin. And the only thing you
Speaker 1: people remember from a coach is him ranting in the
Speaker 1: coach's box because obviously he coached for a very long
Speaker 1: time and it was bloody good. He's a bloody good coach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: rats in the rank. Another Ossie documentary, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Another one. I was just thinking through them all and
Speaker 6: I just off the top of my head and I
Speaker 6: thought I'll just go Aussie. Yeah, you know, waking from
Speaker 6: the two ossy ones. I remember when I saw that,
Speaker 6: and I grew up. I didn't grow up in For
Speaker 6: those who don't know, it's about like art council. It's
Speaker 6: about the events leading up to an election for local
Speaker 6: council election. And it's called rats in the Rank for
Speaker 6: very good reason or rat's in the rank because people are,
Speaker 6: you know, undermining each other left right center, and it's
Speaker 6: extraordinary that these people, I suppose it was before the
Speaker 6: ubiquity of reality television. The fact that there's cameras on
Speaker 6: them at all time and they're allowing these phone calls
Speaker 6: to be filmed whereby they're basically dissing each other. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it was extraordinary, extraordinary. In fact, I looked at a
Speaker 6: little just before I came to the studio. Though. Oh
Speaker 6: I tried to find a trailer for it. There's not
Speaker 6: a I couldn't find a trailer, but I saw a
Speaker 6: thirty second clip from it, so that's I don't know
Speaker 6: what year it was, but bizarrely, Larry Hand who was
Speaker 6: the mayor at the time, and basically the clip is
Speaker 6: talking about Elbow at the time. That's a long time ago.
Speaker 6: Say yeah, yeah, Well, Alba says, well, don't tell him.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to tell him that, you know. Albert said,
Speaker 6: don't tell Albow. Don't tell Alba. It's extraordinary. He's now
Speaker 6: the Prime minister.
Speaker 5: There you go. That is that is fascinating.
Speaker 6: It's a great piece. It's like and then I just
Speaker 6: thought of documentaries as well. It's there. Yeah. They moved me,
Speaker 6: and they fascinate me, and they intrigued me. And then
Speaker 6: I thought that there's a couple actually I thought, oh,
Speaker 6: they're left of field ones that in a way have
Speaker 6: had an effect on me. One of them is an
Speaker 6: American documentary called Waiting for Superman. I don't know if
Speaker 6: you know it. It's about the American schooling system. It's
Speaker 6: quite old now, but when I saw that, I was
Speaker 6: a horrified but also to me then everything made sense,
Speaker 6: especially about where America is at the moment. It's about
Speaker 6: the public schooling system in America and how it essentially
Speaker 6: is completely broken, not slightly completely broken. Unless you unless
Speaker 6: you have money, like big money to be able to
Speaker 6: send your kid to a private school, well good luck,
Speaker 6: because you're not going to get an education. It's terrifying.
Speaker 6: So what I used to do years ago, when I'd
Speaker 6: spend quite a lot of time in Los Angeles friends
Speaker 6: of mine who would consider moving to Los Angeles, I
Speaker 6: had a little batch of DVDs of that film, and
Speaker 6: I would give it to them and just say, hey, look,
Speaker 6: if you're having kids and whatever, have a look at
Speaker 6: that before you think you're settling down here.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 6: It was really powerful struck me, and then I thought,
Speaker 6: and then here we go. Another one that I thought
Speaker 6: that would be a good one is Megan Washington, who's
Speaker 6: a maid of mine. She was talking about this doco
Speaker 6: that she'd seen that she's thinking of turning into an opera,
Speaker 6: and it's called if you heard of find As Keepers. No,
Speaker 6: it's like it's out there. It's set in I can't
Speaker 6: remember exactly which stated to the Southern State of America.
Speaker 6: It's about this guy. His father is a pilot. They
Speaker 6: have a really sort of fraught relationship. The father's flying
Speaker 6: one day and the plane crashes and the father dies
Speaker 6: and the son is sort of maimed and has to
Speaker 6: have his leg amputated, and in order for him to
Speaker 6: after the amputation, he asks the hospital for his foot.
Speaker 6: But they don't just give me his foot. They give
Speaker 6: him the whole leg. And he wants to keep it
Speaker 6: as like a part of him and his link to
Speaker 6: his to his father and whatever. He's got a bit
Speaker 6: of a drug habit, and so he keeps the leg.
Speaker 6: Here we go. This is very slight. He keeps the
Speaker 6: leg in like a barbecue, in a webber type barbecue
Speaker 6: in a storage facility with other stuff. But he runs
Speaker 6: out of because of his habit. He can't keep up
Speaker 6: with the rental payments of the storage unit. So the
Speaker 6: storage unit gets all the contents of his storage unit
Speaker 6: gets sold. This yeah, yeah, and this guy buys all
Speaker 6: the stuff in that unit, opens the barbecue and finds
Speaker 6: this mummified leg. Now where does this guy's head go?
Speaker 6: He thinks, it's like, this is really quite an interesting thing.
Speaker 6: He sees that as his way of sort of defining himself.
Speaker 6: So he starts to advertise for people to come and
Speaker 6: see this mummified leg. And he charged people to come
Speaker 6: and see this mummified leg. And then he becomes a
Speaker 6: local celebrity, you know, the footman they call him. And
Speaker 6: he goes on programs in a wrestling program and his
Speaker 6: life becomes he's living his fantasy life because suddenly he
Speaker 6: is someone because of this guy's leg. The guy whose
Speaker 6: leg it is finds out about him and then wants
Speaker 6: his leg back. That's when it gets interesting who owns
Speaker 6: the leg? And ultimately ultimately it's like sounds really funny
Speaker 6: and weird than it is. And then right at the
Speaker 6: end it becomes quite tragic, and you actually feel for
Speaker 6: both of them, like really feel for both of them,
Speaker 6: because they have just what defines them. It's tragic, it's
Speaker 6: really really tragic.
Speaker 5: You know, when this was released roughly.
Speaker 6: Handfully good handful of years ago. If I had a guess,
Speaker 6: maybe six years half a dozen years ago, I'm guessing
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have not heard of that film, but that sounds
Speaker 1: as cheap as there we go American film. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: when I think a documentary you mentioned the Year of
Speaker 1: the Dogs and that the like art kind of you
Speaker 1: know that year likehart Or and you wonder about the
Speaker 1: Year of the Dogs like that that crew followed them
Speaker 1: around exactly the right season, didn't they? And you kind
Speaker 1: of think many how many camera crews have followed somebody
Speaker 1: for nothing and then got there's no story here exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that there's no this buggle or
Speaker 6: money and making documentaries as well. That's like I take
Speaker 6: my hat off to those people who do it, because yeah,
Speaker 6: they're out in the field for a very long time,
Speaker 6: just hoping, hoping, hoping for something.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the movie that before we get to
Speaker 1: mash you have followed up with this, this, this you
Speaker 1: being on this podcast, I feel like has its origin
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago because you came on the
Speaker 1: project and I told you how much I love Getting Square.
Speaker 1: I remember, and and I'm trying you just found out
Speaker 1: that you were you were.
Speaker 5: Doing the sequel, because it's a couple of years ago now, yeah,
Speaker 5: and you.
Speaker 6: Said, oh, I've got something for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're doing a sequel, and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, wow, I was so excited, and so to see
Speaker 1: it now about two weeks ago. It is because I
Speaker 1: wasn't I admit, I wasn't holding out for a Getting
Speaker 1: Square sequel, like I just I just didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: just I thought it's a great film. I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the most underrated comedies ever. And I think
Speaker 1: Johnny Spitzbateria is one of the purest comedic creations that
Speaker 1: I've seen, you know, on screen, certainly from in Australia.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's genius and I watched it. It
Speaker 1: is really funny, but it's also it packs a punch
Speaker 1: emotionally and it there's a reason for it that it existing.
Speaker 1: You know, Let's have let's have a listen to the
Speaker 1: trailer and we'll chat more about Spit.
Speaker 8: International future money linder, criminal mastermind. John Francis Spettier.
Speaker 6: Lock him up. This is Australia. It's still a free country,
Speaker 6: isn't it.
Speaker 5: Wynes is blessed.
Speaker 6: Oh mate, there's used a tragic case. Mistaken identity.
Speaker 9: This is your driver's license.
Speaker 6: No, he's gone screen your eyes. I don't have squinty eyes.
Speaker 8: You run for a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Why are you in jail.
Speaker 6: I'm going to get out of you, win I do.
Speaker 6: I'm going to look over here and the little one
Speaker 6: John Francis Ptiri has been located alive. Disaster to spit.
Speaker 8: John Spyteria opens his mouth.
Speaker 6: You and I are but fuck suck suck are resonable
Speaker 6: doubt at a reasonable price. All refuse refused.
Speaker 8: We want to know where the money got to a
Speaker 8: week one names.
Speaker 6: You've got a little kid to look it up for.
Speaker 8: You'll see this little boy.
Speaker 6: I'm his uncle.
Speaker 2: You had your hair like me, biscuit.
Speaker 6: They used to call ginger nut a ginger nut.
Speaker 7: Johnny Spirit, I'm gonna grass you love?
Speaker 4: Is he?
Speaker 7: Johnny was a clock.
Speaker 8: You wouldn't even tell her the time.
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna no more. You are, in fact, John
Speaker 6: Francis BATTERI are you not excuse me? I know I'm
Speaker 6: currently suffering from a very bad case of amnus caesia.
Speaker 5: It's so it's so good.
Speaker 1: Great here Bob Franklin by the way, yeah, in there
Speaker 1: and the Sema on the big screen. You obviously love
Speaker 1: this character. So what what was it about revisiting you know, spit.
Speaker 6: Well, it came about just by through a conversation I
Speaker 6: had probably about ten, ten eleven years ago with a
Speaker 6: filmmaker down here, actually, one of my closest friends, Robert Connolly,
Speaker 6: and we were talking.
Speaker 5: About the fact that my boys Robert, yeah, boyd.
Speaker 6: Number of film, three dollars the bank, paper planes. Yeah.
Speaker 6: We're talking about the fact that comedy I think is
Speaker 6: probably my strongest suit. But I don't really ever get
Speaker 6: an opportunity to play with it. And it's the reason
Speaker 6: that you know, years ago that I began acting. I
Speaker 6: was a very naughty boy in school and I used
Speaker 6: to make you know, the rest of the kids laugh
Speaker 6: so much so that I spent most of my schooling
Speaker 6: outside the classroom because the teachers couldn't bear to have
Speaker 6: me in there because the classroom would just go totally wild.
Speaker 6: So I don't get to play and to be funny
Speaker 6: very often. And so Rob brought up the characters Spetiri,
Speaker 6: and we just started a riff and I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: you could put him in just you know, all these
Speaker 6: different situations and you know, potential mayhem may ensue. And
Speaker 6: he said, there's something in that you should pursue it.
Speaker 6: And so I rang Chris Nice, who wrote Getting Square,
Speaker 6: and he said, well, it's interesting you rang, because myself
Speaker 6: and Jonathan Ttoplitzki, the director, have actually been writing something.
Speaker 6: Oh wow on spit send it around speed. He said,
Speaker 6: you want me to send you something. I said sure,
Speaker 6: and he sent it and it was the first draft
Speaker 6: of this movie. And the very first time I read
Speaker 6: it, it was like, oh my god, it was inspired because
Speaker 6: as you said, there had to be a reason for
Speaker 6: its existence. It couldn't just be getting square too. We
Speaker 6: weren't interested in doing that. And it was. It was
Speaker 6: a solid character piece that was very very funny on
Speaker 6: the page, but it was also it also had levels
Speaker 6: to it and layers to it, which made it a
Speaker 6: really really rich piece of material. And for me as
Speaker 6: an actor, something that it was like it was a
Speaker 6: gift and a gift to be able to play with
Speaker 6: and especially with Jonathan as well. It was the third
Speaker 6: film that I've done with Jonathan and we've got a
Speaker 6: great relationship and he allows me literally to play, which
Speaker 6: is yeah, you know that's what acting is playing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I mean, it's a character that could
Speaker 1: be a version of this could exist on SNL, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So it's a big comedy character.
Speaker 1: How do you make sure it isn't just a comedy
Speaker 1: character and it has that heart?
Speaker 5: How do you find how do you find all that?
Speaker 6: I think the key to it and it's something that
Speaker 6: Jonathan I would always talk about. It had to be
Speaker 6: based in a reality. Every the whole world, even though
Speaker 6: it's you know, the materia, yesque world, everything within it
Speaker 6: has to be believable. The audience has to believe it now.
Speaker 6: The creation of Spateria for me came from the fact
Speaker 6: that I'd known I can't tell you how many Johnny's
Speaker 6: Paterias in my time. I lived down the road from
Speaker 6: King's Cross more than thirty years my life, so I
Speaker 6: have encountered Johnny many, many, many, many times. And I'm
Speaker 6: a very proud ambassador of Wayside in the Cross, where
Speaker 6: characters like Spateri and their friends go to Wayside to
Speaker 6: basically be listened to and to be heard. And I've
Speaker 6: spent time with these people, listening to their to their stories,
Speaker 6: finding out why they are the way they what they are,
Speaker 6: and they're you know, obviously very moving, very funny, and
Speaker 6: they're you know, great real people that you know, I
Speaker 6: have a huge affection for. And I think that's one
Speaker 6: of the reasons, you know, I love the characters so much,
Speaker 6: is because I have, Yeah, I feel for the characters.
Speaker 5: So you do.
Speaker 1: You're watching him and you have empathy for him, even
Speaker 1: though he's done some bad things and he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's gone down the wrong path a few times, but
Speaker 1: you feel like he's trying to get back on the
Speaker 1: right path and yeah, you just you feel for him.
Speaker 6: Yeah. The key is I think he's a good man. Yeah,
Speaker 6: for all his little quirks, idiosyncrasies and flaws, and he's
Speaker 6: got a lot of them, but in this film at
Speaker 6: least you know he's off the gear, but he is,
Speaker 6: you know, an exit. He's a small time crim as well,
Speaker 6: but at his heart he is a good man. And
Speaker 6: the thing that we see through this film is that
Speaker 6: he is the least judgmental person that you will ever
Speaker 6: hope to come across. And the film ultimately it's a
Speaker 6: celebration of us. Really, it's a celebration of us as
Speaker 6: Australian and Australians and something that we cherish and that's
Speaker 6: made ship. This is what it's about to be a
Speaker 6: true mate. And at the end of the film, I
Speaker 6: think you walk away thinking, gee, you know, wouldn't mind
Speaker 6: being a mate Johnny's Patios.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: And then companies are hard to make and get made
Speaker 1: and had to make work and you've smashed this one absolutely.
Speaker 1: But as an actor, I love speaking to you know,
Speaker 1: I say proper actors about as opposed to my comedy
Speaker 1: mates about acting as far as drama and comedy and
Speaker 1: how do you just go it's not about thinking of
Speaker 1: it as a comedy or a drama.
Speaker 5: It's actually just committing to the character.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just spot on, that's right. Yeah, And as you know,
Speaker 6: this film it's quite unique. I honestly can't think of
Speaker 6: another film like it whereby we're really pushing the extremes here,
Speaker 6: the extremes of comedy that you know still exist in
Speaker 6: the realms of reality, and the levels of pathos and
Speaker 6: drama in it. It's like, it's pretty it's like it's
Speaker 6: a really delicate balance. But you're spot on. It's literally
Speaker 6: it's it's believing in the character. Yeah, the minute that
Speaker 6: you're you know, you're just playing the character for laughs.
Speaker 6: It ain't that sort of film.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, let's have a little ware. I've listened of John
Speaker 1: Francis Spateri as he finds himself in one of the
Speaker 1: detension centers that I'm sure when the guys were writing
Speaker 1: this was a front page use and or at least
Speaker 1: in the shadows of it, this is a spit So.
Speaker 6: What what what's your name?
Speaker 5: Buddy? My name?
Speaker 6: Yeah, what's your name? Lemma?
Speaker 5: They you?
Speaker 6: Uh, do you want to write it up on the
Speaker 6: blackball format.
Speaker 7: To the citizen. Listen, it's fine, it's good.
Speaker 6: No, No, that's that's a. That's a good name, man,
Speaker 6: that's a. That's a good name. I just I just
Speaker 6: think it might be a little bit too long for
Speaker 6: the visa forms. Like in Australia, we we we have
Speaker 6: short names.
Speaker 7: Forget visa is better. I have a short name.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, you could be mate, have a have a
Speaker 6: short one you have for me? Oh yeah. In Australia
Speaker 6: got heaps and we've got our steveo uh to Trevor.
Speaker 3: Trev Yeah, I write it.
Speaker 10: I'll write it down for you. Shut up, Trevor, Trevor spelling.
Speaker 5: Trevor. Yeah, my name is forever.
Speaker 7: This good name, good name.
Speaker 5: For his It's so funny to listen to it.
Speaker 1: But also what you're missing when you watch it is
Speaker 1: the blackboards actually a whiteboard, which is lovely, and there's
Speaker 1: a lovely miss spelling of Trevor at the end there
Speaker 1: as well. But the noise, the little noises that he
Speaker 1: makes when he's reacting, it's not dialogue. That's just that's
Speaker 1: playing and yeah that's I'll chatting to somebody again. Bob
Speaker 1: movie is going to be have we listened to this
Speaker 1: and getting a bit of a kick out of it.
Speaker 1: But I play an ah L character who can't get
Speaker 1: a game called Strawnie, and I've done it for years
Speaker 1: less so recently, and he Bob's a fan of the character.
Speaker 1: And we're kind of saying, it's it's what the understand
Speaker 1: straw any or the sea kind of the vulnerability in
Speaker 1: Sandus Storny. It's what happens when he's not talking in
Speaker 1: between bits. Yeah, and I'm certainly not comparing the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is in between bits that are so good.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fantastic film. And also I would say
Speaker 1: to people go see it in the cinema. You've been
Speaker 1: watching it with the audiences, what's it like watching a
Speaker 1: comedy like with a big.
Speaker 6: It's been incredible. I've been touring the country screening it
Speaker 6: at night and then having you know, question and answer
Speaker 6: sessions afterwards. Before the film was released shortly, it's been remarkable.
Speaker 6: The reaction, actually, the levels of laughter in the cinema
Speaker 6: has been pretty incredible. But that that ride of absolute
Speaker 6: bursts of hilarity from the audience and then absolute pin
Speaker 6: drop silence has been yeah, really quite fulfilling. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 6: it's been great.
Speaker 1: And when you're making a comedy, what's that do you?
Speaker 1: As far as you know, because we forget when when
Speaker 1: actors are making films, they're living.
Speaker 5: You know, they've got stuff.
Speaker 1: They need to do, they need to you know, do
Speaker 1: life stuff in between rocking up a set. But do
Speaker 1: you feel lighter or are you pretty even tempered to
Speaker 1: feel making you know the boys? And that's going back
Speaker 1: a bit or you know, haws that eight weeks three
Speaker 1: months for you making comedy compared to like making a That's.
Speaker 6: A fascinating question. I've never actually thought of the difference
Speaker 6: between the making, whether it be comedy or drama. All
Speaker 6: I can say is, I suppose is as I've got older,
Speaker 6: when I was younger, I would be classified. I suppose
Speaker 6: in furted commas as much more method, I would actually
Speaker 6: go through sort of a form of, you know, psyching
Speaker 6: myself into the character so much so that I would
Speaker 6: believe that I was that person and enter the scene.
Speaker 6: But now I've got to an age whereby I feel
Speaker 6: I can sort of short circuit it a little bit
Speaker 6: and get in and out much quicker. But I like
Speaker 6: existing in that character and being that character when I'm
Speaker 6: king not not you know, not lunchtime or anything, not
Speaker 6: at all, but on set, so Sbateria, for example, as
Speaker 6: a character that I feel as though I've formed it
Speaker 6: so fully that I could put him in any situation
Speaker 6: at any moment and I'd be able to act instantaneously, spontaneously,
Speaker 6: organically and completely real in the moment. It's like, yep,
Speaker 6: I know that character just so well, and it's yeah,
Speaker 6: as a as an actor, it's it's it's good to
Speaker 6: know that. Yeah, Okay, I got one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got one, So you certainly have make congratulations.
Speaker 1: And I remind p'ple go seat in the cinemas. It's
Speaker 1: in cinemas now as this podcast gets released, or the
Speaker 1: day after actually, and go see it with people and
Speaker 1: check out Getting Square. If you haven't seen Getting Squat,
Speaker 1: go back and check it out. I will say, though,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen Getting Squaed, this he works.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no need to see it at all, but you know,
Speaker 6: added moments you can see it either before or after.
Speaker 6: But you're right, we did make this specifically for the
Speaker 6: cinema and especially for a comedy as well, that there
Speaker 6: is nothing better than sitting in a cinema that's full
Speaker 6: as a communal experience and laughing together as a group
Speaker 6: of people. It is so done good. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 6: going to the football. It's so far better to go
Speaker 6: to the MCG than sit at home, you know, with
Speaker 6: with one or two mates and whatever. It's a communal
Speaker 6: it's a communal thing.
Speaker 1: It's a release and I completely agree, and it'd be
Speaker 1: void of distractions and light.
Speaker 5: I still love going to the movies, Okay, I can
Speaker 5: do it each week.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the movie that you watch
Speaker 1: for the first time this week.
Speaker 4: And you're a beer drinker, Serrea, would you like to
Speaker 4: share a martini with me?
Speaker 5: Martini?
Speaker 6: I love a Martinez.
Speaker 7: Oh John, the gentlemen and Martini.
Speaker 4: I think you will attle find that these accommodating are
Speaker 4: quite drying.
Speaker 5: Don't you use olives? Olives? Weather?
Speaker 4: Hell?
Speaker 6: Do you think?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Man, we do have to make certain concessions to
Speaker 5: the war. We're three miles from the front line.
Speaker 1: Yes, but a man can't really savored his marke kinney
Speaker 1: without an you know, otherwise, you see, it just.
Speaker 6: Doesn't quite make it.
Speaker 1: Attention From nineteen seventy Robert Oltman, it's mash. Of course,
Speaker 1: we spoke about the legacy early Donald Sutherland, Elliott Good,
Speaker 1: Tom Scarett, Robert Deval, Sally Callum and nominated for the
Speaker 1: Oscar and Gary Berghoff is the only cast member who
Speaker 1: goes on from the movie with right playing radar into
Speaker 1: the TV series and a pre Harry and Maud bud
Speaker 1: Court also in there.
Speaker 6: Who looks a bit little bit like Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: Harry Potter about Budd Court, I think you're absolutely right, David,
Speaker 1: whennon did you enjoy mash?
Speaker 6: This is all I can say. Peters, I sort of
Speaker 6: wish that would pick something else.
Speaker 1: I was almost gonna email you and say you want
Speaker 1: to change I hadn't seen it, and I watched it
Speaker 1: and wow.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm with you. It's it hasn't stood the test
Speaker 6: of time. Well, I don't think it's really difficult to
Speaker 6: talk about this film without first of all, you know,
Speaker 6: addressing the elephant in the room whereby it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 6: got severe problems where we are now, Like it's it's
Speaker 6: extremely misogynistic that the only women in it are literally
Speaker 6: just there for as objects sex objects. There's got some
Speaker 6: racial issues as well, Yeah, it's yeah, not to mention homophobia. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's got all those boxes, so it's very, very difficult
Speaker 6: to sort of put those aside and then talk about
Speaker 6: the film. There's some amazing stuff in the film which
Speaker 6: might definitely we should talk about, but it's yeah, it
Speaker 6: hasn't stood the test of time.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: I was watching it, and even from the opening song
Speaker 1: Suicide Is Painless, I found myself because I heard those
Speaker 1: opening cards and those helicopters that I also you spoke
Speaker 1: about earlier, and I had this kind of without being
Speaker 1: a massive out of mass, you know that it's it's
Speaker 1: intrinsically kind of linked to into my brain because of
Speaker 1: my pop cultural diet and I and I go okay,
Speaker 1: and then I started in the lyrics Suicide is Painless,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, it was, it's got shocking because I've
Speaker 1: friends have you know, we've lost I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: like this song. And then go back this play the
Speaker 1: music because the TV series just plays the.
Speaker 6: Completely I've never I'd never heard the lyrics before, and
Speaker 6: it was it was exactly the same thing as soon
Speaker 6: as it started, you know, the first a couple of notes, yeah,
Speaker 6: and then and then the lyrics come in and but
Speaker 6: then you know, I've got my helicopters and like that.
Speaker 6: The cinematography in that opening scene, I've got to say
Speaker 6: I really loved because all I could think of was,
Speaker 6: and we'll just talk technically about it for a second,
Speaker 6: is it wouldn't be shot like that these days that
Speaker 6: you'd be using drones and it would actually look very different.
Speaker 6: You actually felt that so much more because you know,
Speaker 6: you knew that there was a cinematographer or a cameraman
Speaker 6: literally hanging out the of a hell copter very very
Speaker 6: close to another helicopter. It wasn't it was like the
Speaker 6: lens was you know that it wasn't on a zoom there.
Speaker 6: So it was the level of danger with the guy
Speaker 6: who was shooting that was pretty high. And I don't
Speaker 6: know if he was pulling focus himself or he had
Speaker 6: a focus puller, but it was hard and he had
Speaker 6: that camera is like massively heavy, so I was like,
Speaker 6: I'm looking at it, going, man, hats off. That's incredible.
Speaker 6: And also the image of like on that scaletial helicopter,
Speaker 6: the body the like sort of slashed injured, blood pouring
Speaker 6: out and it looked and that was obviously a stuntman
Speaker 6: because it's not a you know, hanging on that helicopter
Speaker 6: was like, wow, but you're right the lyrics is I thought, oh,
Speaker 6: I didn't realize this song had this piece of musical lyrics.
Speaker 6: And then I'm listening to him and going, yes, because
Speaker 6: the music is quite it's sentimental, but the lyrics are like,
Speaker 6: it's like quite bizarre. And then did you did you
Speaker 6: find out about it afterwards? Oh, do you want to
Speaker 6: tell the story? Well, well, it's just like, as I
Speaker 6: listened to it, I thought, oh, yeah, there's obviously some
Speaker 6: sort of sense to the these lyrics, and then I
Speaker 6: couldn't really quite make sense of them. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: after I saw Watch the Thing, and it did take
Speaker 6: me three different times to get through it all people,
Speaker 6: I looked it up, just just just the song. And
Speaker 6: then apparently Robert Altman he knew that he wanted a
Speaker 6: song called Suicide as Painless and it had to be
Speaker 6: like the most stupid song, most stupid song, but he
Speaker 6: couldn't write it. He couldn't write it stupidly enough. So
Speaker 6: he gave it to his fourteen year old son, Yeah, Mike,
Speaker 6: who wrote it at the age of fourteen. And then
Speaker 6: the great, the great clean as the fact that he
Speaker 6: ended up making more money from it. The fourteen year
Speaker 6: old son more more than a million dollars in royalties
Speaker 6: when his dad only got seventy thousand bucks to do
Speaker 6: the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was two million. That It's incredible.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. It does like it did. Kind of before
Speaker 1: I even looked up that that fact, which I kind
Speaker 1: of did after I watched it, I kind of go, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's put to me in the space at least, which
Speaker 1: is a bit of an emotional roller coasar the music
Speaker 1: and then the lyrics like, Okay, I guess they're setting
Speaker 1: a scene that this is this doesn't really we're in
Speaker 1: a place where nothing really makes sense, perhaps, you know.
Speaker 1: And then and there's a it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a grittier, dirtier camp than what we see in the
Speaker 1: TV show. Like the TV shows very kind of obviously
Speaker 1: shot in the you know, in Hollywood. I'm exactly sure where.
Speaker 6: They shot this, but I think they shot it in
Speaker 6: pretty much the same location. Yeah, Malibu, Malibu State it
Speaker 6: was something Malibu State Park.
Speaker 1: Because it is it is, it is certainly muddy, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 5: It was quite quite an opening. And the I've heard Robert.
Speaker 1: Upman talk about because this this does this is almost
Speaker 1: like the first It's basically a sex comedy really, and
Speaker 1: a bit of it.
Speaker 6: Did remind me of carry a carry on movie. Ye yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: an American carry on movie.
Speaker 1: Well then you have I think Animal House eight years later,
Speaker 1: I think I wrote them back, Yeah, eight years later,
Speaker 1: Talkies and Stripes in eighty one, Revenge of the Nerds
Speaker 1: eighty four, and then years later American Pie. So he
Speaker 1: does kind of open the door and kind of create
Speaker 1: a genre. I'm sure it's a genre that quite a
Speaker 1: few people happy if it didn't exist, but but you know,
Speaker 1: it is. It is a movie genre that has been
Speaker 1: enjoyed and midtally. I watched Porky's when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I watch Stripes when I was younger. I watched Revenge
Speaker 1: of the Nerds when I was younger and enjoyed them.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, so maybe if I watched mash before
Speaker 1: I you know, and all that stuff, maybe wouldn't bother me.
Speaker 1: But watching it now, you go, wow, it's it's really tough.
Speaker 1: There's a scene where hot lips hauler hands have a
Speaker 1: shower and they're all basically watching, you know, mostly men.
Speaker 1: There might be two or three women in there, and.
Speaker 6: They're trying to determine what color her hair is.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, they've they've hooked it all up, kind of
Speaker 1: a pulley system. They pull the rope up, goes a
Speaker 1: tent and she's naked in the shower, and then and
Speaker 1: they're cheering and they're making their comments, and then Hot
Speaker 1: Lips hauler hand goes, which they've they've worked out her
Speaker 1: names hot Lips because they recorded her having sex with
Speaker 1: Robert Deaval.
Speaker 6: And saying, don't know where that comes from now, because
Speaker 6: she was saying, oh, yeah, yeah, God, my lips are hot.
Speaker 6: Made whose lips were he's or hers? I don't remember.
Speaker 6: I think hers, And I don't want to give you
Speaker 6: my hot lips. I want to give you my hot lips.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if they were talking about her
Speaker 1: lips on her head.
Speaker 5: I think the difference is so I hope they're not his.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so, And this is all the way through
Speaker 1: this this movie, and then Hot List goes into.
Speaker 5: The Majors tend to complain, And when.
Speaker 1: I was watching it, I was going, I wonder how
Speaker 1: much this is just the character or is there frustration
Speaker 1: from the actress.
Speaker 5: Is she aware how.
Speaker 1: What this is like to even act out to be
Speaker 1: honest or I don't know. Let's have a listen and
Speaker 1: you can. I just felt like I could hear a
Speaker 1: desperation and a frustration and almost a pleaing and a
Speaker 1: begging in this performance that is kind of inconsistent with
Speaker 1: most of the other performances it if.
Speaker 6: You're playing it. I think it's the best line in
Speaker 6: the in the in the film because it actually sums
Speaker 6: up with the films about I think this line.
Speaker 9: Wist colonel a second, you can't go shut up your work,
Speaker 9: that it in our hospital, and said, Sid, I has
Speaker 9: your fault.
Speaker 2: They got your own doing anything that's cried out?
Speaker 3: What do you want me to put them under her wrist?
Speaker 3: Say what?
Speaker 2: I can't Marsel take to that first they called me,
Speaker 2: and you let them get away with that, and you
Speaker 2: let them get away with everything. You don't I'm not
Speaker 2: really empy, that's matter.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna reside my godness.
Speaker 3: God, damn, let's resign a goddamn commission, my.
Speaker 2: God, mession, my godessione.
Speaker 7: A little more wine, use please, And.
Speaker 5: Then they get back to drinking.
Speaker 6: Yeah, to paint the picture. Yeah, he's in bed with
Speaker 6: with a woman and a bottle of wine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the line, which I think you'd say is
Speaker 1: very appropriate for watching in twenty twenty five, is you
Speaker 1: was happening and you didn't do anything to discourage them.
Speaker 1: So that's that's true in so many you know, businesses
Speaker 1: and workplaces and households you across the world.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was. It was humiliation that scene. It was
Speaker 6: very difficult to watch. I didn't realize she was up
Speaker 6: for an acting nomination for that extual. It's so wow,
Speaker 6: because yeah, she's certainly got that. That's the media scene
Speaker 6: she's got. Otherwise it's just like the character is ridiculous.
Speaker 6: And then after that scene she's only ever seen, she
Speaker 6: obviously is completely cracked then and she turns into this
Speaker 6: sort of ditzy idiot who was a cheerleader at the
Speaker 6: football games. It seems to be a completely different character, Well.
Speaker 1: The different Tom Skarett's character Duke ends up sleeping with her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've seen we see no evidence of how that happened.
Speaker 6: No, it just happened.
Speaker 1: And you're right, she just becomes after that pretty powerful scene.
Speaker 1: That was a scene where I thought, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: something the movie is address. Yeah, there's some substance, no,
Speaker 1: forget about it. Yeah, it's it is a hard watch.
Speaker 1: I mean Robert Otman's his first film. I think fourteen
Speaker 1: directors passed on this movie before. Wow, Wow, his first film.
Speaker 1: You know, for those who don't know, Robert Oltman is
Speaker 1: considered one of the all time greats Ashville. Shortcuts in
Speaker 1: the player were my entry points into Robert Oltman. Gosford
Speaker 1: Park was one of his later films. But McKay and
Speaker 1: Missus Miller and Popeye, Doctor t and the Women. He's
Speaker 1: one of the great and known for his improvisation. The
Speaker 1: Tom Skerris at eighty percent of the film was improvised. Interesting,
Speaker 1: the screenwriter who won the Oscar on the Red Power,
Speaker 1: on the Red Carpets. He said, there's barely a word
Speaker 1: that I wrote.
Speaker 5: On that screen. He wins the Oscar. Wow, mixed emotions.
Speaker 6: Yeah, where do you take it?
Speaker 1: Where do you stand on improvide? You know you said
Speaker 1: there's you had space to play?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah. On spit, Well, okay, we'll just specifically
Speaker 6: talk about spit in that regard. The screenplay that Chris
Speaker 6: wrote is fantastic, Like Chris is a his day job.
Speaker 6: He's a very successful criminal lawyer, and so he's the
Speaker 6: genesis for the character Johnny SPATII. Came from him seeing
Speaker 6: a guy in the dock one day whereby he was
Speaker 6: just watching going he couldn't go work out if this
Speaker 6: guy was doing this consciously or by happenstance. He was thinking,
Speaker 6: is he the dumbest guy I've ever met or the
Speaker 6: smartest guy I've ever seen? In the dock? So he knew.
Speaker 6: Chris knows how to write those characters, got a great
Speaker 6: ear for dialogue. So the script was good. There was
Speaker 6: great stuff there. However, Jonathan, as I say, does allow
Speaker 6: allow play, and so yeah, there's stuff that as Batteriri,
Speaker 6: there's yeah, there's there's improvisation without a doubt, but you
Speaker 6: don't improvise us for the sake of it, and you
Speaker 6: smell it. You smell when it's not good. It's funny.
Speaker 6: Actually in this in mash I'd be curious to know
Speaker 6: if they shot sequentially because I have a feeling that
Speaker 6: because it was all pretty much shot in the same place,
Speaker 6: and they obviously go to the same location every day
Speaker 6: to shoot this movie, it felt to me as though
Speaker 6: they possibly did a lot of it, because the earlier
Speaker 6: scenes where they were all, you know, the actors were
Speaker 6: talking over each other, I felt were actually quite clunky
Speaker 6: and I didn't believe it they were doing it. They
Speaker 6: were doing it just for the effect of talking over
Speaker 6: each other. It wasn't that they had an intent they
Speaker 6: actually was saying something, and I could see the mechanics
Speaker 6: of it, and it just it rang falls. As it
Speaker 6: progressed through the movie, though, it started to change and
Speaker 6: people it felt as though people had confidence in what
Speaker 6: they were doing, and it, yeah, I felt that obviously
Speaker 6: then they could they owned their characters potentially, and they
Speaker 6: were more confident in substantive stuff that will come out
Speaker 6: of their mouth as opposed to just filler, which was
Speaker 6: happening early on. And the timing was off early on
Speaker 6: with some of their stuff.
Speaker 5: Because Alvin's also famous for overlapping dialogue, which what.
Speaker 6: I'm talying about it, and it was just very clear
Speaker 6: very early on that it was just it was a gimmick.
Speaker 6: It was an effect and it wasn't nobody was listening
Speaker 6: to each other in terms of they were just told
Speaker 6: to overlap, and that's what came across. As the movie progressed,
Speaker 6: it got better and better, and oh it sort of
Speaker 6: it sort of worked in and became became organic and real.
Speaker 1: He also loves ensembles. There's actually I think sixteen thirteen
Speaker 1: out of twenty five actors in the credits.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure if you noticed, was introducing which their
Speaker 5: first film.
Speaker 1: I think Eltman kind of scoured comedy clubs as to
Speaker 1: find new people.
Speaker 6: There were some good There were some great performances in there.
Speaker 6: Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould both fantastic. Robert du Val
Speaker 6: great as well. I really lovely performances.
Speaker 1: There was an incident on set well, which Robert only
Speaker 1: found out after the movie was released. I believe Elliott
Speaker 1: Gould and Donald Sutherland went to the studio behind his
Speaker 1: back because they were confused and I guess upset that
Speaker 1: he was spending so much time shooting secondary characters.
Speaker 5: They thought that.
Speaker 1: They went to the studio and complained about it. The
Speaker 1: studio then backed Robert Oltman. They would have some runnings
Speaker 1: with Oltman later on. I think Oltmann said the film
Speaker 1: was never released. It actually escapes his words, but they
Speaker 1: the studio backed them, said they went back to the
Speaker 1: set and gone on with the job. But afterwards Elliot
Speaker 1: Good let Robert up wand know, and they saw the film.
Speaker 1: They couldn't understand. They liked it, and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we understand Ali Good in the moment, just let Robert know.
Speaker 5: He was pretty pissed off.
Speaker 1: But because Eli Good told him, he actually, I think
Speaker 1: cast Ali Good in almost every movie he made, but
Speaker 1: he never cast Donald Sutherland again.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, yeah, yeah? Have you ever? Have you ever?
Speaker 1: You don't need to name Nameelo if you want to,
Speaker 1: please do when something when you're not gelling with a director,
Speaker 1: do you just have to put.
Speaker 5: Up with it?
Speaker 6: Or Look, it's a Filmmaking is a team sport. You
Speaker 6: really have to work together. Thankfully, it's never it hasn't
Speaker 6: happened too often in my career. The only two instances
Speaker 6: where I haven't got on with either the director and
Speaker 6: there's one instance where the only time that I the
Speaker 6: relationship with the leading lady was not good. Both of
Speaker 6: those people it was their first job and they were
Speaker 6: really they had no experience, but the level of over
Speaker 6: confidence in Hubris was just extraordinary, extraordinary, and it was
Speaker 6: made both projects very very difficult. And both of them
Speaker 6: I won't tell you what they were or who they were,
Speaker 6: but they were in both of them any extreme locations,
Speaker 6: which made it very very difficult, not unbearable, but close.
Speaker 1: All people go through your filmography, work it out. I
Speaker 1: remember when we did Rogue Live, we have like I
Speaker 1: remember one night in particular, Big Brother was massive when
Speaker 1: we you know, we would always have to have the
Speaker 1: housemates come in and do that, and we tolerated it.
Speaker 1: But I do remember a couple of times they were
Speaker 1: the ones acting like they owned the joint. And there
Speaker 1: was one nighte in we had Matt Damon in. Matt
Speaker 1: Damon just you know, barely requested anything I had. I
Speaker 1: had a couple of people with him, obviously, but the housemates.
Speaker 1: I just was walking around talking to people and there
Speaker 1: was the housemates who were making it all about them.
Speaker 1: It is incredible. Donald suddenly you know he is a
Speaker 1: brilliant act. They never nominated for an Oscar, which I surprising.
Speaker 6: Next moment I playing one sectually, I was amazed. Very
Speaker 6: tall man for that that that period. Very tall man.
Speaker 1: Well he's seen. I remember watching JFK. Oliverstone's JFK. You
Speaker 1: We're on holidays in Queensland and I was a bit
Speaker 1: obsessed with the JFK Sassination and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: see it, So my mum dropped me off at the
Speaker 1: cinema just by myself and we're on holiday. Three three
Speaker 1: and a half hour film, just watched it and I
Speaker 1: came out and she said later on, she goes, you
Speaker 1: were shaking when you came out, like you were just
Speaker 1: like had this visceral kind of reaction to it. But
Speaker 1: one of the things I love the most was Donald Sutherland.
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you remember it, just playing like a
Speaker 1: you know, a spy or somebody man in the hat
Speaker 1: with that of information, with treanscoat in a park park
Speaker 1: bench and just going through various scenarios the JFK Sassin nation.
Speaker 1: And I just thought that guy, what a guy. I'd
Speaker 1: seen him before. I seen him before, and I knew
Speaker 1: his son obviously, you know, Keifer, and but.
Speaker 6: That he was, and he he command on the screen
Speaker 6: by doing so little, so little, both him and nearly
Speaker 6: a girl as well. They both yeah, yeah, less is more.
Speaker 5: There are there are a couple of scenes in this way.
Speaker 1: It's you know, the the gay conversion is weird.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, it's weird.
Speaker 5: It's it feels like a sketch.
Speaker 1: Us a gross, So they basically try to fuck the
Speaker 1: gay out of him, and and it's just.
Speaker 6: It's I didn't and I didn't see that coming, because
Speaker 6: then I don't know if anybody else has seen this film.
Speaker 6: The bit that leads up to that is the guy
Speaker 6: what's he called, I'm painless, And that's where suicide is
Speaker 6: Painless comes from the painter's poll the dentist. He's yeah,
Speaker 6: he says that he's going to commit suicide. So they
Speaker 6: stage this is like a last supper scene. Obviously, it's
Speaker 6: with biblical references and whatever. They have painless in this coffin,
Speaker 6: and then all the apostles parade by and you know,
Speaker 6: give him something, and I thought, oh, this is really interesting.
Speaker 6: This is going into an interesting territory. And I thought
Speaker 6: that he'd really popped the cyanide pill and I was
Speaker 6: actually expecting him to die, which I thought, that's actually
Speaker 6: really really brave, And then it cuts to the next bit,
Speaker 6: but no, it's not that. It's then he gets, you know,
Speaker 6: he's resurrected by putting it be putting in bed next
Speaker 6: door with you know, lovely fluffy curtains and whatever. And
Speaker 6: then he's you know, a lady's been brought into him
Speaker 6: to slip under the sheets to convert him.
Speaker 1: And flying away in a helicopter, and like she looks
Speaker 1: and this shell look is like one of like what
Speaker 1: just happened? And then she smiles to the camera and
Speaker 1: it's like I kind off to make it feel real.
Speaker 1: I wish they hadn't put that smile in because I
Speaker 1: think she had been taken advantage of completely. I wish
Speaker 1: that he just died. Yeah, yeah, that would have been
Speaker 1: way more interesting. Do you have a rub it up
Speaker 1: on film that you that you like? He said, you're
Speaker 1: not one guy at all.
Speaker 6: I remember when I saw the player.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: Tim Robbins in great form. He's he's excellent.
Speaker 5: Well, I think I'm glad we had spit to talk
Speaker 5: about today, because.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was like, and you bugging the sense of
Speaker 6: all these movies and I'm looking them like, incredible list
Speaker 6: and the seventies are my that's my favorite hero of
Speaker 6: American cinema, Australian cinema. And there's all these movies. I go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'd love to talk about any one of those and so,
Speaker 6: but you're not allowed to talk about any if you've
Speaker 6: seen them, so.
Speaker 5: I did like the The one thing I did like
Speaker 5: was the ending.
Speaker 6: This the ending is fantastic. The ending is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this idea that this announcing the credits of the
Speaker 1: that was pretty subversive. I like Coltman. I'm glad he
Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad he we have the films of
Speaker 1: his shortcuts is another one I really like before we
Speaker 1: Go News this week of a sad passing in the
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman pass Away.
Speaker 5: He's one of the one of.
Speaker 6: The greats without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Another
Speaker 6: one like Donald Sutherland Man that that guy on screen
Speaker 6: was like, yeah, talk about effortless and the power of
Speaker 6: that man on screen. Yeah, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant performances.
Speaker 1: Remember it's true you try minded with Missisippi Burning was
Speaker 1: the one that I still just that film and it's
Speaker 1: the first time saw Francis McDormand as well. I think
Speaker 1: William Dafoe love that film so much. But I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the French connection.
Speaker 6: Connection is absolutely yeah. Conversation, oh my god.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: En Balms yea later in his career was was great
Speaker 1: for Anderson David Wenham.
Speaker 5: I made you watch a movie.
Speaker 6: A bit of a smelly one. But anyway, but you know,
Speaker 6: people love it though some people love it.
Speaker 5: That's the thing.
Speaker 1: And there might be people listening going and the movie
Speaker 1: might mean loud to you and and you watched it
Speaker 1: whenever you watch and we're not trying to take anything
Speaker 1: away from you. It's like when we discussed love. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's love. Actually, there's lots of problems with love. Actually,
Speaker 1: but if you love it, you love you completely. That's
Speaker 1: and that's the way this and this was like you know,
Speaker 1: this way forty one million in nineteen seventy. It was
Speaker 1: the second highest grossing comedy of all time at that
Speaker 1: at that point, after A Graduate, which was released four
Speaker 1: years earlier in sixty seven, and the last Little A
Speaker 1: fun note sevesistone is an extra in the movie, but
Speaker 1: spotting but I didn't spot it.
Speaker 5: I didn't go back, which is.
Speaker 1: Ten minutes in, is in the background eating lunch. So
Speaker 1: if you're watching it for fast time, if you want
Speaker 1: to check it out slides slice sliceloan and also the
Speaker 1: loudspeaker shots had the moon in the background, and this
Speaker 1: was shot in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 5: Now, if you put the sums together, oh, Wow.
Speaker 1: If you look really close, really close, you can see
Speaker 1: Neil and Buzz.
Speaker 6: You can see in the in the studio next.
Speaker 5: Door, on that hot potato, on that can of worms.
Speaker 5: By the way, where did that football field coming at
Speaker 5: the end? Where was oh my god?
Speaker 6: Yeah in Korea it turned in the Wildcats or Yeah.
Speaker 6: The thing about that is is I've never been a
Speaker 6: fan of American football. I don't really you know, I've
Speaker 6: been to a game, whatever, it doesn't really do it
Speaker 6: for me. I love AFL and whatever. Having said that,
Speaker 6: some of the little bitch in that in that sequence
Speaker 6: at the end, even though it's extremely hopy the way
Speaker 6: chin not a bad sport, there's something in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so you've got something out of shing Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: watching mash mate, congratulations on spit. I really urge people
Speaker 1: to go see it, not just to support Austraine cinema
Speaker 1: and as we like people do, but just because it's
Speaker 1: a fun movie that packs a punch emotionally. You get it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a great night out with you mates.
Speaker 1: Check it out in cinemas. Congresslations Stave, got on your peak.
Speaker 4: Great beam with you mate, follow Hawkeye Trapper, Duke Dango, Red, Painless, Radar,
Speaker 4: Hot Lips, Dish and staff Sergeant Volmer as they put
Speaker 4: Our Boys Back Together Again, starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould,
Speaker 4: Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duval, Joanne Flug, Rene Overs
Speaker 4: and Wir, Roger Bowen, Gary bergo Of, David arg And,
Speaker 4: John Chuck Bred Williams and Indus, Arthur, Tim Brown, Corey Fisher,
Speaker 4: Bud Cord, Carl gottlieb Don, Damon Tamara, Horrocks, Ken, Primus,
Speaker 4: Danny Goldman, Kim At with Michael Murphy, Gee Wood, Rick
Speaker 4: Feeland and Bob Glad jam Mrmi. That is all.
Speaker 5: That was a thrill.
Speaker 1: They have an hour just talking about movies with the
Speaker 1: great David when sincerely go see Spit and don't do
Speaker 1: it just just to you know, support Ouzsie Cinema and
Speaker 1: all of that ghost see because it's a bloody great film.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 1: It is funny, it's got a heart and it's got
Speaker 1: a purpose. Great cast alongside David Wenham, David Field, who's
Speaker 1: also one of the all time greats, Gary Sweet doing
Speaker 1: great work, so many people doing great work on speak.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to all involved.
Speaker 5: It is. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's going to be I think feature in my best
Speaker 1: films of the year when we round that out at
Speaker 1: the end of twenty twenty five. Thank you to everybody
Speaker 1: who listens to the show. I really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yasny podcast at gmail dot com is where you can
Speaker 1: find us. Also get onto our speak Pipe. I will
Speaker 1: try to endeavor to play more of them as they
Speaker 1: come in, but speak Pipe. Have any feedback that you
Speaker 1: have or questions or thoughts on movies that we cover
Speaker 1: or movies that you would like us to cover next
Speaker 1: week on the show. It's a returning guest. I love
Speaker 1: a returning guest. I love that people want to come back.
Speaker 1: My good mate from Across the Ditch. It's Josh Thompson,
Speaker 1: great Aussie comedian actor. You see him in Young Rock.
Speaker 1: New Zealand fans would have set down from Seven Days
Speaker 1: and the Project, the early New Zealand project. The first
Speaker 1: couple of years he's done a whole lot. I did
Speaker 1: in an episode of House They Married with him. It
Speaker 1: was one of the funniest days I've had on set
Speaker 1: with him and Tom Budge. He's in the new Disney
Speaker 1: Pixar series. First time they've done a TV series. Called
Speaker 1: win or Lose, and we're going to chat a bit
Speaker 1: about that. But he's back, funny enough, and this is
Speaker 1: just a coincidence to continue the trilogy that is Toy Story.
Speaker 1: He did Toy Story one, he's coming back to do
Speaker 1: Toy Story two. Is Toy Story two better than Toy
Speaker 1: Story one? There's three trumpets, all will be discussed next
Speaker 1: week with my good mate Josh Thompson Toy Story two.
Speaker 1: Until then, bye for now. And so we leave old
Speaker 1: Pete safe and soult and to our friends of the
Speaker 1: radio audience, we've been a pleasant good night.