Speaker 1: You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Hello there, and welcome back to The Disconnected, here for
Speaker 2: the second time with mister Daniel Kramer, contributor, director, filmmaker,
Speaker 2: incredible person overall. Daniel, Thanks for doing this again.
Speaker 1: It's a great pleasure to be.
Speaker 3: Back on the show.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things where I looked back to
Speaker 2: the last time you were on here and I realized
Speaker 2: it has been far too long. For some reason, I
Speaker 2: felt like it was last year, but it's been It's
Speaker 2: been almost two full years now, and you have had
Speaker 2: some massive life changes since then. First of all, you moved.
Speaker 2: You moved south from from Frisco to Pasadena. How's been
Speaker 2: the transition downward for you?
Speaker 3: Uh, it's been great.
Speaker 1: I moved down because my then fiance and now husband
Speaker 1: got a job at Claremont McKenna College. He's a in
Speaker 1: the math department, very very different from me, but so
Speaker 1: otherwise I probably wouldn't have left the you know, the
Speaker 1: Bay area. I was very much at home, but no.
Speaker 1: Being being in the LA area has been has been great.
Speaker 1: I'm able to connect with a lot of the a
Speaker 1: lot of the people that I work with on a
Speaker 1: on a pretty regular normal basis, including Alan Arkish, David
Speaker 1: del Valle, Howard Berger. You know, I see the guys
Speaker 1: that I work with on these extras and these tracks
Speaker 1: a great deal more than I used to.
Speaker 3: So that's been great.
Speaker 1: I have access immediate access to the Margaret Herrick Library
Speaker 1: and a lot of the local resources and a lot
Speaker 1: of the local events. So and and Pasadena I was
Speaker 1: you know, I was down and I was very down
Speaker 1: on LA for a long time, just on an on
Speaker 1: an aesthetic level, on a kind of ethos level. But
Speaker 1: like Pasadena is really my speed and my husband's speed.
Speaker 1: It's a very nice little burg here.
Speaker 2: Uh so we all genuinely compared to the rest of
Speaker 2: l A.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's its own little little kind of burg.
Speaker 3: It's its own little hamlets. So we we.
Speaker 1: I mean, my husband and I have a great time
Speaker 1: just kind of like you know, they're they're endless places
Speaker 1: to eat around here, like the restaurants are. It's a
Speaker 1: never ending supply, like we're always like we're like almost
Speaker 1: a year and a half or more into our time
Speaker 1: here where we're still finding places.
Speaker 3: So that it's been great. It's been great.
Speaker 1: I do miss the Bay Area, but as far as
Speaker 1: being anywhere else goes, Pasadenas is a pretty uh pretty boss.
Speaker 2: It's a giving you opportunities to strike up friendships, like
Speaker 2: with the Elliott Gould. That's been pretty cool to watch
Speaker 2: growing with you. What happened there?
Speaker 3: Oh my lord?
Speaker 1: I met Elliott years ago at a party that was
Speaker 1: thrown by Henry Jagulin, and I met a lot of
Speaker 1: great people at those Jaguline parties.
Speaker 3: I chatted up Diane.
Speaker 1: Cannon, I remember at one of them, and another one,
Speaker 1: I mean, Richard Benjamin and Paul Apprentiss would come, Monty Hellman.
Speaker 3: Would be there.
Speaker 1: It's like all the old Hollywood that I love was
Speaker 1: of the seventies and whatnot, where many of them were there.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know what to do in a room of
Speaker 1: modern celebrities. If I were in a room with Ryan
Speaker 1: Gosling and you know, Emma Watson or whatever else, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know what to say to them. But I had
Speaker 1: plenty to say to Richard Benjamin and Paula Apprentiss and
Speaker 1: Monty Hillman and Diane Cannon and Mary Crosby who shot
Speaker 1: J R.
Speaker 3: On Dallas, and I met other all kinds of here.
Speaker 1: But Elliott was one of the people who was a
Speaker 1: bit of a and at least in those days, a prankster.
Speaker 1: And I would hang out with him and David Profile
Speaker 1: from the he was Richly Aprile on the Sopranos, and
Speaker 1: David has who made a longtime friend, and we would
Speaker 1: be off on a corner and Elliott would be pulling
Speaker 1: these little playful pranks on people at the party. And
Speaker 1: I kept his number for years. I never called it.
Speaker 1: I ran into him again at the Karen Black Memorial
Speaker 1: and then we we caught up briefly there. Then when
Speaker 1: I when they were doing the Capricorn one set at Imprint,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I don't have to go through
Speaker 1: the agents and the managers, which can be a real
Speaker 1: pain in the in the in the tush. So I
Speaker 1: get his column and you know, we we had a
Speaker 1: series of phone conversations about doing not just an interview
Speaker 1: for Capricorn one, but for two other well, A Bridge
Speaker 1: Too Far, which did come out and was properly released
Speaker 1: on the four K package from Imprint, I believe, and uh,
Speaker 1: then there's one more coming. So it was a three
Speaker 1: It was a three part interview on three different titles,
Speaker 1: and so I called him. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: so where you know Elliott very very you know, it's
Speaker 1: a proper interesting way of a pattern of speech.
Speaker 3: He goes, well, where would you want to shoot this?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, we could do it at
Speaker 1: your places? Like, oh, I I can't do it there.
Speaker 3: I was like, well I can.
Speaker 1: We can come to you. I can bring you to
Speaker 1: my place. It's like, oh, is that possible. I would
Speaker 1: love to do that. I was like, okay, well I
Speaker 1: can pick you up. And I was like yes, I'll
Speaker 1: give you my address, and he did. I picked him
Speaker 1: up and and and I drove him back to my
Speaker 1: to our place. Here, Evan comes out of our bedroom
Speaker 1: and he was like.
Speaker 3: Hi, nice. Nice.
Speaker 1: It was hysterical and and uh He's like, oh a
Speaker 1: nice to meet you. And it's like, you know, my
Speaker 1: son Jason is also gay, and you know, he goes,
Speaker 1: but he was a delightful man, and we had a
Speaker 1: nice drive to and from and we had a great interview.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 1: But yes, he I you know, when I came, it
Speaker 1: looked like just a brief aside, it looked like his
Speaker 1: house and looks like the place a bit where his
Speaker 1: character lives in the Long Goodbye. It's not an elevator,
Speaker 1: but it's a flight up. And I comment, it's like,
Speaker 1: you can do the Long Goodbye to here.
Speaker 3: Elliott. Uh, it's like, oh you think so well.
Speaker 1: Robert Altman and I were talking about doing a sequel
Speaker 1: for many years and it never happened. But yes, he's uh,
Speaker 1: that was an interesting adventure. And then we of course,
Speaker 1: like we met our couple friends that that weekend. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we just had Elliott Gould over our house. They're like
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 2: What That's gonna be a nice perk for Evan coming
Speaker 2: into a relationship randomly you come out of the bathroom
Speaker 2: to Elliott and Gould.
Speaker 1: Well, his mother was just like, you know, like you
Speaker 1: brought Elliott Gould to your place, Like did you clean up?
Speaker 1: Of course that's the first thing that she asked.
Speaker 3: But it was like.
Speaker 2: That's great. I mean, I uh, there's another friend that
Speaker 2: happened to meet him. I think he was in line
Speaker 2: for donuts in Koreatown or bagels or something like that,
Speaker 2: and he was thrilled with him. But everybody's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's so nice. I said, yeah, my friend Daniel has
Speaker 2: been like getting real close to him lately, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just everybody's having a good time with Elliott Gould
Speaker 2: in La.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he would call me at a pretty regular
Speaker 1: clip after that, and he wanted to talk about election things,
Speaker 1: and because he was very he's very into what he
Speaker 1: was reading in politics and everything else, and I was
Speaker 1: and we talked about it the bid on the drives,
Speaker 1: so he was you know, he would call me and
Speaker 1: do we just talk about like what's going on in
Speaker 1: the election cycle.
Speaker 3: So that was fun.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's he's a very fun guy and a
Speaker 1: very very interesting person.
Speaker 3: To be around. And of course, you know has his memory.
Speaker 1: You know, he's he has a very jocular tongue in
Speaker 1: cheeks sense a lot of the time. And so you
Speaker 1: ask him about uh, Telly Savalas, like, well, whenever I
Speaker 1: mentioned the name of Telly Savalas, I have to pay
Speaker 1: him a certain amount. It's like Ellie's and I used
Speaker 1: to play poker together. Buddy and I used to play
Speaker 1: poker together, and it was like, you know, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's very uh and when I it's funny when I
Speaker 1: interviewed Brenda Vacaro for the same package, I was like,
Speaker 1: so you were acting alongside both James Brolin and Ellie Gould,
Speaker 1: both of whom were married to Barbara streisand and she
Speaker 1: she's she's just fun, you know. But so Brenda's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: isn't that interesting? I should have asked him which one's
Speaker 1: your favorite?
Speaker 3: I think I think Brolin is Brenda. But they're still married,
Speaker 3: but I.
Speaker 2: Would hope that would be the answer.
Speaker 1: Whenever Elliott mentioned he was like, well, my my former wife.
Speaker 1: And I was like, and then you have to think
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I know, you mean Barbara streisand there.
Speaker 2: Well, you got to take the good and the bad
Speaker 2: in moving to Pasadena. Elliott is a perk, of course,
Speaker 2: but this last few months the fires, you guys were
Speaker 2: pretty impacted by that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were down in uh, San Diego. We had
Speaker 1: gotten legally married in December, and Evan had a conference,
Speaker 1: he had a this statistician conference down and San Diego
Speaker 1: says like, you want to come with, We'll make it
Speaker 1: a little mini honeymoon for the legal ceremony. Anyways, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a hotel full of like these really elaborate,
Speaker 1: wonderful water slides, which I'd never been on since I
Speaker 1: was a kid.
Speaker 3: So that was fun.
Speaker 1: And then we had people watching our cat who's right
Speaker 1: up here, and she and we were getting the constant
Speaker 1: reports was like in all the fires getting out of
Speaker 1: control and the windstorm and everything else, and we were like, well,
Speaker 1: we're let's us hanging here for now. And then it
Speaker 1: became more and more apparent that our cat sitters were
Speaker 1: going to have to evacuate and that the fires were
Speaker 1: inching ever so much closer to where we lived, and
Speaker 1: it's like, we need to get back home, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to cut the short and get back home.
Speaker 3: So we did. We it didn't really come that close
Speaker 3: to us.
Speaker 1: The two ten was the dividing line between evacuation zones
Speaker 1: and non evacuation zones. We're near old town old town Pasadena,
Speaker 1: so we were pretty safe. But yeah, it was pretty
Speaker 1: pretty unsettled and disconcerting watching all that unfold and calling
Speaker 1: friends and making sure they were okay. And we knew
Speaker 1: quite a few people who were evacuated, and my husband's
Speaker 1: carpool to call as a college carpool. Many of those
Speaker 1: people and I lived in Altadena and did lose their
Speaker 1: homes and are rebuilding. But yeah, it was quite quite
Speaker 1: quite a trauma and a just an unbelievable thing to
Speaker 1: see unfold.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I visited shortly to California for a few days at
Speaker 2: the end of January, and just the amount of people
Speaker 2: that impacted and you know, stuff that you could see,
Speaker 2: it was just it's kind of kind of crazy to
Speaker 2: think about the I don't know, like the breadth of
Speaker 2: the impact here for the amount of people that these
Speaker 2: all affected, because it was so many at once too.
Speaker 2: That was the biggest thing is alternate routes were even
Speaker 2: affected for a lot of these people that were leaving.
Speaker 2: Travel alone was just immensely impacted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was multiple fires.
Speaker 1: I mean Malibu as we know, and uh on the Palisades,
Speaker 1: just parts were completely decimated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And then I mentioned Henry Henry Jagulain earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: I see him fairly often lunches and everything. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: down in the in the Santa Monica area. He had
Speaker 1: to briefly move out of his place and you know,
Speaker 1: and it was I think it was a he only
Speaker 1: had to wait a few days.
Speaker 4: Then.
Speaker 1: Randall Kleiser is another friend who directed Greece. He's up
Speaker 1: in the in the running Canyon area.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 1: He had to evacuate a lot of people that I
Speaker 1: know had to had to evacuate her within close Joe
Speaker 1: Dante almost had to evacuate I know. So yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it was constantly checking in with everyone that you know,
Speaker 1: including other commentators in David del val I think almost
Speaker 1: almost vacated.
Speaker 3: But didn't.
Speaker 1: You know other people in the commentary, you know, just
Speaker 1: that they're doing these things all the time, or you
Speaker 1: know friends. Yeah, you're checking in on everybody constantly, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, first time you were here, we primarily were focused
Speaker 2: on Sydney j Fury. It was a big deal for
Speaker 2: you at the time with that box set coming from Imprint,
Speaker 2: I knew it was going to be here today. That's perfect. Imprint, though,
Speaker 2: has become more of a collaborator, like common partner for
Speaker 2: You've done quite a bit for them over the last
Speaker 2: couple of years. Uh, how's how's the relationship there? How
Speaker 2: do you? How do you like Imprint?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: My fingerprints are all over their back on this one,
Speaker 1: but uh, I think they're I think they're very happy
Speaker 1: with the with the response, and it's been wonderful to
Speaker 1: be able to go to them and uh, really this
Speaker 1: project was birthed by the fact that my husband, who
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, is a statistician, went away for a
Speaker 1: number of months during the campaign season because he works
Speaker 1: in uh, public data, political data, health data, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So that ALEC season was it is like prime time
Speaker 1: for him. So he was away, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: on the on the campaign trail, and I was left
Speaker 1: home alone and very much missing him. And you know,
Speaker 1: you had multiple options there. I could have drowned my sorrows.
Speaker 1: I could have I could have become a public drunk,
Speaker 1: and I could have curled up in a fetal position
Speaker 1: under the covers for all that time.
Speaker 3: But I really wanted this. This really began this whole Sylvia.
Speaker 1: Ratzano set that I'm sure we're going to be diving
Speaker 1: more into, but I'll cut to the chase. It began
Speaker 1: when Vinegar Syndrome released Sylvia Ratzano's The Sky Is Falling
Speaker 1: with Dennis Hopper and Carol Baker as part of their
Speaker 1: Villages of the Damned set. And this is a film
Speaker 1: I had seen via its other title blood Bath on
Speaker 1: VHS for a long while, and uh on the VH,
Speaker 1: I mean the VHS is and I I tend to
Speaker 1: defend VHS, but this particular VHS was unwatchable. It was unwatchable.
Speaker 1: And I feature a sample of the VHS in there
Speaker 1: to to kind of demonstrate to people that this is
Speaker 1: what they what people were seeing all these years. It's
Speaker 1: so dark in the in the exterior shots, you can't
Speaker 1: make out anything that's going on. You just it's completely
Speaker 1: unintelligible on you know, you just it's unwatchable. But when
Speaker 1: they released the Blu ray with this beautiful new scan
Speaker 1: and the exteriors looks so vibrant and colorful and uh,
Speaker 1: and that you could finally experience the movie, which is
Speaker 1: you know, an acquired taste as my as my husband says, oh,
Speaker 1: that the rankings on letterbox for that movie have a
Speaker 1: uniform uniform distribution, meaning meaning that across the board, the ones,
Speaker 1: that the ones and a half, the two's and so
Speaker 1: on up until about four four and a half is
Speaker 1: like equal lead, you know, dispersed, it's not like hanging
Speaker 1: to one side or the other. Opinion was incredible, incredibly
Speaker 1: divided on that thing, and I was absolutely fascinated by
Speaker 1: it as a you know, as not just the queer
Speaker 1: subtext in it, but the queer text in it, I guess,
Speaker 1: and I connected with David del Valle on it because
Speaker 1: both of us are interested in and that and that
Speaker 1: type of thing talking about that thing, whether the hidden
Speaker 1: and unhidden gay aspects of movies. And it's like, isn't
Speaker 1: The Sky is Falling incredible? I was like, yes, it really,
Speaker 1: it really is an unbelievable thing to kind of like
Speaker 1: hold and look at and break down. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really I feel like I want to do
Speaker 1: a nrazanothon now I've seen this. And it was upon
Speaker 1: seeing a movie called Young Shoulders, which is his last movie,
Speaker 1: which is very much au I mean, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a Swan song, but it's kind of a way that
Speaker 1: he got through mourning the death of his of his
Speaker 1: longtime partner, win Wells, who wrote The Sky's Falling and
Speaker 1: died too young. And that was in seeing that movie
Speaker 1: which floored me. I mean, my my jaw was on
Speaker 1: the floor with a number of the things in that film.
Speaker 1: I was so taken aback and so astounded by it.
Speaker 1: It was as as a style pieces, as a piece
Speaker 1: of a personal cinema, as a kind of almost a
Speaker 1: very almost too intimate diary entry the way that you
Speaker 1: know the sky is falling was. You know, it was
Speaker 1: at that point that I said, I have to do
Speaker 1: something on this guy. I don't know what that's going
Speaker 1: to look like. I could probably never sell a book
Speaker 1: project on him. No publisher would have it, even with
Speaker 1: the whatever funky name I have. You know, I would
Speaker 1: never be able to sell it as a book. I
Speaker 1: don't know if would it be an essay, would it
Speaker 1: be a monograph, I don't know. I got to do
Speaker 1: something about and so you know, Josh Hibbard got a
Speaker 1: bless him at imprint.
Speaker 3: Every once in a while. So I was like, all right,
Speaker 3: what do you want to see?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: And the you know we got we got this paramount deal,
Speaker 1: what do you want from us? That that began as
Speaker 1: an impression but didn't go well.
Speaker 2: For the people that have ever talked to Josh. That
Speaker 2: was pretty spot on at first.
Speaker 1: Well, I might he always says, Josh, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: sorry that was awful, but h but I said no,
Speaker 1: I'd like Blue is a film that I had revisited,
Speaker 1: uh with the knowledge that I had accrued from seeing
Speaker 1: these other Arizona films and I'd become refascinated by that.
Speaker 1: I'd always liked it, but I was like it was
Speaker 1: had revealed itself anew to me, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: if you can get blue with uh fade in the
Speaker 1: movie that was shot on the back of Blue on
Speaker 1: the set and everything, that would be an amazing set
Speaker 1: and I could do something about nerit for that. And
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, it sounds good. He put it
Speaker 1: on the list, And then so when Evan, my husband,
Speaker 1: went off, I was like, we would rather than wait
Speaker 1: for the green light, what I could basically, uh, sublimate
Speaker 1: my my grief and my whatever into making something a
Speaker 1: little more ambitious and a little more all encompassing, and
Speaker 1: I could really invest everything into this this project for
Speaker 1: the time that he's away, uh, which is what I did.
Speaker 1: So like then, Evan was checking in on me at
Speaker 1: one point, It's like, are you okay, you're hanging It's
Speaker 1: like no, I'm good, now, I'm good, And I was like,
Speaker 1: I miss you, but like I've got I've got something.
Speaker 1: And by the time he came back, I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got It was the fastest turnaround time for any
Speaker 1: feature length thing I've ever done, and it was really
Speaker 1: like it was seeing around that time made in England,
Speaker 1: the Palm Pressburger movie Pressburger. That was that was narrated
Speaker 1: by Scorsese. Now, now that to me wasn't just your
Speaker 1: average nonfiction or biopic doc. It wasn't like you're It
Speaker 1: wasn't like a you know, people magazine kind of survey
Speaker 1: of like this happened, then that happened, and then you know,
Speaker 1: put the pieces together like a PBS kind of thing.
Speaker 1: This almost felt like a diary entry or like a diary,
Speaker 1: like an extended diary where Scorsese went not only went
Speaker 1: into the biographical details, but like what the individual films
Speaker 1: meant to him emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, how they were kind
Speaker 1: of touchstones in his own development as a as an artist.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, what a way to be
Speaker 1: taken through a canon and a career and on all
Speaker 1: these films as like that would be that would be
Speaker 1: fun to do. It's like maybe I'll do that for Nrazano,
Speaker 1: but I'll pace my commentary and then I'll invite other
Speaker 1: people to come. Because I had written in one point,
Speaker 1: like David del val film historian David Delvall in my narration,
Speaker 1: I say, like David del Val says this, that, and
Speaker 1: the other things, like well, why don't just go down
Speaker 1: to David and interview and to get him on camera,
Speaker 1: and that that would be so much better. And I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, this is integrating well to my my
Speaker 1: very kind of deep into the weeds narration, why don't
Speaker 1: I try to get other people? So, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like I was asking, you know, Nathaniel Thompson, who
Speaker 1: became really the heartbeat of the entire thing. You know,
Speaker 1: Nathaniel was so eloquent but at the same time concise
Speaker 1: and at the same time like he knew what he
Speaker 1: wanted to say, how he wanted to say it, and
Speaker 1: it came out perfectly so like he could he could
Speaker 1: have timed the movie rhythmically by the heartbeat of what
Speaker 1: he said. So that was very helpful. And then I
Speaker 1: just continued finding people who were willing to speak about
Speaker 1: this filmmaker that most Cinophiles didn't know about. There was
Speaker 1: a wonderful guy who runs a blog, Ken Anderson. I
Speaker 1: emailed him because he had written about Di Die my Darling,
Speaker 1: and he had written about one of the others, and
Speaker 1: I said, like, you know, can I interview, you had
Speaker 1: some great things this say that are useful to me
Speaker 1: about Die Die, my darling. And it's like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: there there are other people that you could interview. You
Speaker 1: can you know, why, why do you know I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert, Like, no one is an expert, No one
Speaker 1: knows about this guy. You have a head start. Believe me,
Speaker 1: you have something of value to add. So he acquiesced
Speaker 1: and we had a great time getting him on camera.
Speaker 1: But and then I had gathered all these interviews and everything,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is going to be pretty
Speaker 1: epic in terms of just like, you know, I like
Speaker 1: what I have to say, what they have to say.
Speaker 1: And as it's a two and a quarter hour film,
Speaker 1: and I figure, like, you know, I'll leave it long,
Speaker 1: and this is probably going to be the only thing
Speaker 1: ever done about Sylvia and Artzano. It got good notice,
Speaker 1: It got good feedback from some important people. Patrick McGilligan,
Speaker 1: who was in the editor of the book series had
Speaker 1: written formative texts on Hitchcock and Q Coore and Eastwood
Speaker 1: and all these folks gave it a wonderful write up.
Speaker 1: And Nat sigal Off, my dear friend, gave it also
Speaker 1: some great feedback and Tim Lucas Alonso de Raaldi and
Speaker 1: by the time they were all praising, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna leave it. It's two and a quarter hours.
Speaker 1: It'll be the definitive text on Neritzano. And that's that's
Speaker 1: the way it'll it'll be. And I'm sure people will
Speaker 1: get into it once they're there, that they'll bulk at
Speaker 1: the initial run time, but then you know they'll they'll
Speaker 1: probably nestle into it the more that they the more
Speaker 1: that they watch on So that's how the movie was born.
Speaker 1: And then of course the ending dedication is to Evan.
Speaker 1: This movie wouldn't have existed without you, which is very
Speaker 1: true because I wouldn't have completely dove in and drowned
Speaker 1: myself in the in the thrill of making this big, blumbering,
Speaker 1: ambitious documentary if he hadn't gone away. So and of
Speaker 1: course there's a very tender element of the story which
Speaker 1: involves Silvio losing his partner, his life partner, win Wells,
Speaker 1: mourning him, and then basically giving up filmmaking, giving up
Speaker 1: the you know, basically chucking at all because he couldn't
Speaker 1: function and you know, was in was in psych words
Speaker 1: for depression and was at a Buddhist retreat for a while,
Speaker 1: was at a Christian retreat.
Speaker 3: For a while.
Speaker 1: He just like you know, was figuring out ways to
Speaker 1: cope with with being left there by his partner.
Speaker 3: So there's a tender aspect to the to the story
Speaker 3: as well. And how that.
Speaker 1: How basically Sylvia was constantly trying to come to terms
Speaker 1: with with who he was and trying choosing between because
Speaker 1: he was married to a woman at one point and uh,
Speaker 1: it was around the time that he made Blue that
Speaker 1: he was basically choosing to live out loud.
Speaker 3: For who he was.
Speaker 1: And that movie definitely is very personal and reflective of that.
Speaker 1: It's about a man who doesn't fit in to either culture,
Speaker 1: really having to choose to live on his own terms
Speaker 1: and not really succeeding and doing so. But you have,
Speaker 1: you know, the the Terrence Stamp character who has Nathaniel
Speaker 1: Thompson says, is like a Greek god who is like
Speaker 1: who's dropped into this these this environment and doesn't quite
Speaker 1: fit in anywhere. The accent, you know, being part of that,
Speaker 1: and to me, he's almost like an alien who fell
Speaker 1: to earth, and in some regard he's not at home
Speaker 1: with these banditos. He the opening scene is him kissing
Speaker 1: the man that he kills on the lips. He like
Speaker 1: lifts him up on his horse, kisses him square on
Speaker 1: the lips, drops him, and then shoots him. And then
Speaker 1: they go back to the hacienda to and to celebrate
Speaker 1: their their heist or whatever. And the woman who is
Speaker 1: about to be you know, another one of the bendino's
Speaker 1: about the of his way with this woman. And the
Speaker 1: woman says blue Asul will kiss the lips of the
Speaker 1: of the man, but he will not. He will not
Speaker 1: kiss the lips of Yez. And like Terrence Stample, does
Speaker 1: he not say anything.
Speaker 3: He doesn't.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say a word for like forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: And then finally he takes up with this this Seddler family,
Speaker 1: the white Seddler family, returns to his his own ethnic group,
Speaker 1: I guess to a certain extent. And he doesn't fit
Speaker 1: in there either, And he like join a petit. When
Speaker 1: they're about to get hot and heavy and they're about
Speaker 1: to consummate their their budding romance in the in the
Speaker 1: heat of passion, he leaves. He gets up and leaves,
Speaker 1: And to me, it's just an incredibly personal text, where
Speaker 1: like Silvia is having to choose between the two worlds.
Speaker 3: Here like where do I go? How do I live?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And I was like, Wow, this is an incredibly personal
Speaker 1: film and it was his favorite of all the films
Speaker 1: he made. He continued that was the apple of his
Speaker 1: eye to the very end, that that particular film. So
Speaker 1: I'm happy that that's the film that people are going
Speaker 1: to be seeing it as a critically shaky reputation, but
Speaker 1: I don't think people were ready to see it in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eighth the way that they maybe are today.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. But I do hope that the doc
Speaker 1: is a guide. It's at least a window into how
Speaker 1: the art is personal, even if you don't like it
Speaker 1: or find pleasure or enjoy it. I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the dock, my hope is that people will
Speaker 1: recognize it all this work is incredibly personal. And as
Speaker 1: I say in the documentary, if Sylvia and Artsano ain't
Speaker 1: an O Tier, no one is an O Tier. These
Speaker 1: films are so intensely personal to him, so obviously they
Speaker 1: like leap out and scream like you know that, you know, essentially,
Speaker 1: so I felt like I needed it's a film that
Speaker 1: I needed to do that it was a project I
Speaker 1: needed to take on. And then finally Josh is like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got the masters for Blue and fade In.
Speaker 3: We're ready to go. Get things ready.
Speaker 1: I was like, great, all right, good, you know, so
Speaker 1: God bless Imprint for doing this again, because this is
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't say it's a commercial sure thing.
Speaker 1: This is another going a limb for them, and we're
Speaker 1: promoting as much as I can, and I think I
Speaker 1: think it's a gamble that people will appreciate ultimately taking.
Speaker 1: If they're think if they're debating whether or not to
Speaker 1: get it, I think they will.
Speaker 3: They will.
Speaker 1: It'll be a discovery for them, at least in the
Speaker 1: terms of the the doc seeing a filmmaker who was hidden,
Speaker 1: you know, fell between the cracks under the surface, who
Speaker 1: was very much loud and proud with his with his
Speaker 1: identity as well as his aesthetic approach and his approach
Speaker 1: to making films.
Speaker 2: Well, all this is coming in a pretty wonderful looking
Speaker 2: package from Imprint. We've got Blue, We've got fade In,
Speaker 2: We've got your Dock on a third disc, all coming
Speaker 2: in a hard box release. These are releasing end of July,
Speaker 2: and for you know, what is the best way to
Speaker 2: say this, to to lend credence to the idea behind
Speaker 2: Silvio as an identity. Your doc which I had the
Speaker 2: opportunity from you thankfully to watch last fall, is it's
Speaker 2: the perfect roadmap for stuff like this. And now you know,
Speaker 2: this is the second time that you are, you know,
Speaker 2: ringing the bell for a filmmaker that was underserved in
Speaker 2: their time, under known in today's you know, physical media climate,
Speaker 2: in the retrospective climate of what we're showing in theaters
Speaker 2: at many rep theaters across the country, and all of
Speaker 2: these different things are gonna, you know, lead people to
Speaker 2: realize you're going to be one of the leading voices
Speaker 2: for these underappreciated directors. And to point out something that
Speaker 2: really hit hard for me, you mentioned the link that
Speaker 2: two hours, two and aqu hours for a filmmaker that
Speaker 2: most people have never heard the name of. Literally, that
Speaker 2: is a huge risk to take to say I'm embarking
Speaker 2: on a documentary like this. However, with your stuff, it
Speaker 2: is so continuous that for like five minutes in, I went, well,
Speaker 2: hold on, let me pause it. I need to get
Speaker 2: a notepad because the amount of things I'm learning right
Speaker 2: now I have to go follow up on because everything
Speaker 2: is so immediately like I have to know more about it.
Speaker 2: And the story about Silvio being essentially left and needing
Speaker 2: to find a coping method. I love that. That's how
Speaker 2: you basically birthed this documentary. You were left in a
Speaker 2: situation and to cope. You poured your heart into this
Speaker 2: and because of that, like Silvio stuff, especially with Blue,
Speaker 2: this doc feels immensely personal. Every single the talking head
Speaker 2: that jumps in at that perfect moment, in every other
Speaker 2: scene that you're doing here, and even the narration, it
Speaker 2: feels like it's coming from a heart of just shaking
Speaker 2: somebody uncontrollably by the neck and saying, listen, Silvio is important.
Speaker 2: You have to know more about this. And it's done
Speaker 2: in a way that is like directed personally to a
Speaker 2: certain viewer, and at that moment, the viewer was me.
Speaker 2: It was so perfectly attuned to, like I just want
Speaker 2: to know more about this guy. This is this is
Speaker 2: an incredible feat.
Speaker 1: I think, thank you, thank you. I you know it's
Speaker 1: it is. There's a British critic who said, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like, I need to really invest myself because
Speaker 1: this is a really much more of a deep dive
Speaker 1: than I thought it was going to be, so I
Speaker 1: need this isn't like, you know, it could be a
Speaker 1: casual watch, but you know, at the same time, if
Speaker 1: you really are the curious film goer or the curious sinophile,
Speaker 1: this is going to be buried treasure revealed. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, I feel like I need to I need
Speaker 1: a little more time with it because I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm I don't want to miss anything. So it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and those are the those are the things
Speaker 1: that excite me the most. I'm working now. I got
Speaker 1: the idea within the last month to do a collection
Speaker 1: of my writings on mostly underappreciated UH filmmakers UH directors,
Speaker 1: things I've already written, just in a collection, many of
Speaker 1: them being like video essay UH scripts that are that
Speaker 1: are put in kind of readable form and kind of showcasing,
Speaker 1: like fury in Aritzano and Ted Katschef for my my Darling,
Speaker 1: you know Canadians, but also like American uh O tiers
Speaker 1: that that were missed by the the cognition anti as
Speaker 1: as as they were that they were as they are,
Speaker 1: and just kind of the idea of turning the the
Speaker 1: you know, the the spotlight that's trained on the popular
Speaker 1: populist and and very well known and sometimes it was
Speaker 1: very well extremely well covered filmmakers, and turning the spotlight
Speaker 1: there into more of a search flight finding these guys
Speaker 1: who were buried but had something to offer, more than
Speaker 1: they were originally given credit for. And a lot of
Speaker 1: that has to do with you know, uh o tist
Speaker 1: readings at the time being kind of constrained to a
Speaker 1: certain I think, uh m, a certain kind of purview
Speaker 1: missing kind of a lot of queer voices actually a
Speaker 1: lot of like gay, gay oriented or gay sympathetic voices.
Speaker 1: Fury who is not gay but is definitely with movies
Speaker 1: like The Leather Boys and and uh and others. You know,
Speaker 1: that's not the type of masculinity or a masculine model
Speaker 1: that many filmgoers and uh the O tier kind of
Speaker 1: barons were known for, h We're known for championing and
Speaker 1: they liked the the manly man, you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: John Wayne was their model for the manly man. So
Speaker 1: you know that whereas like a more feminine Western hero
Speaker 1: or a more kind of ambiguous Western hero like Blue,
Speaker 1: like like the the Terrence Stamp character in uh in
Speaker 1: that film, with that, and amid a glut of fire
Speaker 1: hose of Westerns, like you know, there were so many
Speaker 1: Westerns and critics were getting fatigued by them. So amid
Speaker 1: all that, this is like a film that completely fell
Speaker 1: and you know, it was the lampooned for a while,
Speaker 1: because like, how could you cast Terrence Stamp in a
Speaker 1: role like this. He's like with that accent, you can't
Speaker 1: get rid of it. It's like, you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: well the accent. Get over that for a moment, and
Speaker 1: then you'll see how that works weirdly in the movie's
Speaker 1: favor and in an almost experimental way. And then like
Speaker 1: you you couple that with with the score by Manas
Speaker 1: Haji Dakas, and you couple that with all these other touches.
Speaker 1: You couple it with like the fact that Stanley Cortez
Speaker 1: shoots the American Southwest like it's the you know, the
Speaker 1: surface of Mars or something like this dafferent night work
Speaker 1: is like, you know, it's eye popping. And then you see,
Speaker 1: like this is trying to be a little different here,
Speaker 1: and I think people weren't ready for that.
Speaker 3: At the time.
Speaker 2: On multiple levels. I mean, you know, the difference in filmmaking,
Speaker 2: the difference in you know, gay depictions in film even today,
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're continuously not just shown up for.
Speaker 2: They're not the criticals, critical successes or even financial successes
Speaker 2: that many of them deserve to be through through the
Speaker 2: filmmaking at its core, which it's it's an embarrassing oversight
Speaker 2: through you know, many decades that we can look back
Speaker 2: at things like this and say, well, what were you doing,
Speaker 2: how how didn't you show up At the same time
Speaker 2: modern filmmaking, we're seeing a lot of that same thing happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: You know, my my husband and I after the election,
Speaker 1: we were you know, kind of down.
Speaker 3: So we we went on this like, uh, we're.
Speaker 1: Gonna we're just gonna watch movies in bed for months
Speaker 1: until Evan had to go back to back to work,
Speaker 1: back to back to you know.
Speaker 3: The spring semester.
Speaker 1: So one of the movies that we watched is one
Speaker 1: that I've always you know, I'm not gonna say it's
Speaker 1: a great movie, but one that I've always enjoyed.
Speaker 3: Called Married to It by Arthur Hiller.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's like the you know, the Four
Speaker 1: Seasons is out is now popular again because of the
Speaker 1: of the Tina Face series. But it's the same type
Speaker 1: of a model of three couples all kind of you know,
Speaker 1: gathering together, and and it's kind of a comedy or dramedy.
Speaker 1: I guess about that. And Evan is Evan and I
Speaker 1: watched it at the time because like, I like this movie.
Speaker 3: You might like it too.
Speaker 1: Is a character driven little movie. It's not like amazing,
Speaker 1: but it's it's fun. I've I've caught up with it
Speaker 1: once every few years, and I've always I've always loved
Speaker 1: seeing it again. And Evan was like, this is good.
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, isn't it And then like look
Speaker 1: at the critics back in nineteen ninety three what they
Speaker 1: had to say about crashed it. They mouthacurred it, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if this because there was a
Speaker 1: glut of that type of adult dramedy and like you
Speaker 1: know that all these people saying like, oh, it's just
Speaker 1: knockoff Woody or whatever, and but now, like you know,
Speaker 1: I mean Four Seasons as a new audience, people are
Speaker 1: because there's no longer that glut. People are ready to
Speaker 1: receive you know, the you know, the four Seasons. They're
Speaker 1: they're there. That's the number one show on Netflix now.
Speaker 1: And the original, the Alan Alda original, is also on
Speaker 1: there with it, and people are looking at that again.
Speaker 1: They're ready to look at that with a fresh pair
Speaker 1: of eyes. And I said, like, you don't you believe
Speaker 1: that if Married to It came out now, that it
Speaker 1: would be more of a hit like Netflix movie at least,
Speaker 1: Like it's very well written. It's maybe a little corny
Speaker 1: in spots, but that's it's you know, I'm endeared by
Speaker 1: the cornball touches sometimes, but like, you know, I have
Speaker 1: to believe that, Like, you know, people were critics were
Speaker 1: responding not necessarily to the material.
Speaker 3: But they were.
Speaker 1: They were just, uh, critics are human like all of us.
Speaker 1: They get fatigued by by the same type of things,
Speaker 1: seeing them over and over again.
Speaker 3: Now we want those things.
Speaker 1: Now, we want these like great you know, uh, adult
Speaker 1: dramedies that we can just enjoy with our partners or.
Speaker 3: Spouses or whatever.
Speaker 1: And like now that's like and I haven't agreed, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if if Married to It were out today, I can
Speaker 1: I can imagine it getting doing very well on you know,
Speaker 1: the Rotten Tomatoes and everything else. Yeah, I didn't at
Speaker 1: the time. So you know, things things that these movies
Speaker 1: stay the same, but.
Speaker 3: We we change.
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, funny enough, one of the other
Speaker 2: things I was gonna bring up, I'll just switch till
Speaker 2: now because it's kind of really relevant for this. I
Speaker 2: really feel like Cinematograph and Justin the Liberty has been
Speaker 2: making similar curation choices. A lot of these titles that
Speaker 2: were overlooked in their time or even literally lampooned in
Speaker 2: their time as great are now being released in these
Speaker 2: lavish packages and getting repraised. Things like drop Zone that
Speaker 2: just got out, and you've done I like six or
Speaker 2: seven with Justin Now he clearly likes your stuff. Hasn't
Speaker 2: been working on the Cinematograph titles.
Speaker 1: Justin has been wonderful to work with. I'm honored that
Speaker 1: he keeps coming back for more. Yeah, it's been wonderful
Speaker 1: working with Cinematograph, and I love the titles that keep
Speaker 1: coming down the pike, and I hope we can keep
Speaker 1: on working together. I'm doing a couple of things for
Speaker 1: him right now, so well, you know, they'll stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Some of the ones that I really got to throw
Speaker 2: out there. I mean Going South is one that I
Speaker 2: know it's got to mean something to you because it's
Speaker 2: a lot of the old Hollywood type, I mean, the
Speaker 2: classic Jack Nicholson in a way that most people don't
Speaker 2: perceive him, you know, in a film that has been
Speaker 2: looked down on for quite some time and now being
Speaker 2: given this deluxe treatment, that's got to feel at least
Speaker 2: some ounts of you know, redemption in a way for
Speaker 2: a film like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love I love the the psychology aspect of champion, championing,
Speaker 1: championing unknown o tears like with drop Zone. You know,
Speaker 1: Justin got to me and said like, can you make
Speaker 1: a video? I say, just on the the career and
Speaker 1: the films overall of John Badam, I said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: like John Badam's movies.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was like, I I wonder if I can find
Speaker 1: through line and like merely hoppon looking at them closely
Speaker 1: and reading Uh. Well, I read a review of drop
Speaker 1: Zone Lisa schwartz Bom I think who said that John
Speaker 1: Badam is a subculture specialist. I was like, Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I got that that's an angle. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1: And then like the more I got, like wait, the
Speaker 1: dark charismatic is a trip as well, Like Tony Manero
Speaker 1: is charismatic, but he's he's he's kind of a messed
Speaker 1: up guy with a real big dark side and I
Speaker 1: know what about who whose life is it?
Speaker 3: Anyway?
Speaker 1: This charismatic guy who cannot move his arms and legs,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a quadriplegic, and he captivates this hospital
Speaker 1: staff and they love him. But underneath it all, he
Speaker 1: wants to die and he wants to know and war games.
Speaker 1: Like David Lightman, the Matthew Broderick character is this class
Speaker 1: clown charismatic guy who like you know, is uh who
Speaker 1: is admired I think by by Ali Sheety and her
Speaker 1: her cord h in the in the in the classroom,
Speaker 1: and he seems very bunch, you know, the master of
Speaker 1: his domain, on his on his ship, and uh, you
Speaker 1: realize that there's a dark side to him as well
Speaker 1: as like, yeah, he's really attract And then the hard
Speaker 1: way the James Woods character, it's like, well he's he's
Speaker 1: attracted to dark charismatics.
Speaker 3: Like that's another thing.
Speaker 1: Then like you'd look at other things like Wow, there's
Speaker 1: more to John Baddam than anyone ever knew?
Speaker 3: Who who would who would have done? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I talked to John because I was like, I noticed
Speaker 1: that you were you were credited with a John Badham
Speaker 1: film up until Stakeout. Then then you began doing a
Speaker 1: John Badam movie. What's that about? And he had an answer,
Speaker 1: it's in the piece.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's like what what?
Speaker 1: What about this transition from film to movie and that
Speaker 1: that became a thing and I was like, and you know,
Speaker 1: before I knew it, I was like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: one of my better pieces.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's pretty good. I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1: Like who would have thought that you could have found
Speaker 1: what most people would think is like a very skilled
Speaker 1: journeyman who's done a lot of popular movies, and you
Speaker 1: could have turned him into this like author, you know,
Speaker 1: who has kind of weird or not weird, but it
Speaker 1: has a very distinctive kind of aspects that he's attracted
Speaker 1: to and and in the material that that he takes on.
Speaker 1: So that then with with Jack Nicholson on Going South,
Speaker 1: Justin basically said like, can you do a piece on
Speaker 1: Jack as a director? I said, sure, why not. And
Speaker 1: I was like being friendly with with Henry is like,
Speaker 1: you know, Henry's close with Jack, so I'll go down
Speaker 1: and talk to Henry about you know, and Henry is like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack and I just wanted to be directors. I think
Speaker 1: Jack had no designs on being an actor. Originally he
Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer and a director and then like, okay,
Speaker 1: tell me more about that, and then that was that
Speaker 1: became the heart of the piece. But no, it's it's great.
Speaker 1: I love Recently, I think I think pretty much the
Speaker 1: cats out of the bag. I've been working with Severin
Speaker 1: and uh, there's they they they've been promoting Medac, They've
Speaker 1: been promoting Peter Medak. Yeah, and uh, very I think
Speaker 1: people have basically figured it out by now. They're they've
Speaker 1: they're posting like these these clue videos. It's like it's
Speaker 1: easy to figure out. But uh and it's in the
Speaker 1: comments below, So I don't think I'm I'm actually spoiling.
Speaker 1: People have already figured it out. But you know, like
Speaker 1: what what what unites Peter Medaks movies? And to me,
Speaker 1: that's just like, you know, people are always playing dress
Speaker 1: up in Peter Medac movies. You know, people are constantly
Speaker 1: playing these like weird sometimes fetishistic games of dress up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, what's that about? And then like
Speaker 1: you go to Peter Medact's goes to Peter Seller's documentary,
Speaker 1: and then you see that, Oh my family were posing
Speaker 1: uh and uh as Christians uh to you know, protect
Speaker 1: ourselves from the Nazis, And I was constantly having to
Speaker 1: play a game of make believe. It's like that's that
Speaker 1: explains a great deal about why you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: the day and of that of Joe Egg is like,
Speaker 1: you know, playing games, posing as other things, like playing
Speaker 1: the playing the incapacitated vegetable daughter, voicing her playing all
Speaker 1: kinds of like unmistakable rolling the ruling class. You know,
Speaker 1: his first he's Jesus and then he's Jack the Rippers.
Speaker 1: It's like this very very you know, very clear kind
Speaker 1: of voice of the author there.
Speaker 3: So I love.
Speaker 1: I love taking a director that very few people have
Speaker 1: I have thought much about, or they've they've considered terribly closely.
Speaker 1: Then looking at that, at them from a kind of
Speaker 1: psychological point of view and like, oh, what's what's really
Speaker 1: making these wheels turn? What's the what's kind of the
Speaker 1: perculsive juice or the energy that is that is making
Speaker 1: these movies move as as they do, what makes them
Speaker 1: unique to them, And it's fun. It's like a puzzle
Speaker 1: to me. Sometimes it's just like because I really I'm
Speaker 1: a hardened o tourist. I am very hardcore and I
Speaker 1: believe that, you know, I've one particular friend is confronted me.
Speaker 1: It's like, sometimes directors just take jobs Dan, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like no, but let normally yes, sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes not not often, but sometimes the director will take
Speaker 1: a job because they don't believe in anything about the material.
Speaker 3: They just need paycheck. But most of.
Speaker 1: The time, most of the time they have the power
Speaker 1: to say no. Yeah, they can say I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this, I'll do this other thing that I
Speaker 1: was offered, Like what what makes a director? I'd be
Speaker 1: attracted to that piece of material that's offered them versus
Speaker 1: this other thing. Why did did Fury turned down everything
Speaker 1: from Funny Girl to Planet of the Apes, which which
Speaker 1: he thought, and I quote Plan the Apes. I thought
Speaker 1: it was stupid, like, you know, like I couldn't have
Speaker 1: done what Franklin Schaffner did with it. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't take it. I thought it was I thought it
Speaker 1: was stupid, like you know, then he wound up doing
Speaker 1: some other thing that he was attracted to, like a kotchef.
Speaker 3: Ted Kotschiff is.
Speaker 1: Another one of my the you know, one of my
Speaker 1: darlings and who died recently Ri I p. I knew
Speaker 1: him a bit and I was able to contact his
Speaker 1: uh his widow lay fund after he passed away, and
Speaker 1: you know, expressed her agreciation for my arguments. I made
Speaker 1: the video pieces I made, and I worked with him
Speaker 1: one on one. Probably the last thing that Ted did
Speaker 1: on any any professional or whatnot level was the North
Speaker 1: Dallas forty package and that that required some coaching and
Speaker 1: some generous cutting. But you know, with Ted, it was
Speaker 1: just like you know, Ted is all about looking to
Speaker 1: get out. These people are often there most often their
Speaker 1: social climbers, Dirty Kravitz, the guys in Weekend at Bernie's,
Speaker 1: the two Schmucks and weekend at Bernie's quote unquote, you know,
Speaker 1: fun with Dick and Jane. They don't want to give
Speaker 1: up their upwardly mobile lifestyle and this new house that
Speaker 1: they're building, so they resort to crime. It's like the
Speaker 1: common and Wake and Fright. The guy just wants to
Speaker 1: get out of the the the Yaba, that part of
Speaker 1: the outback. He just wants to get out of there,
Speaker 1: and like he wants to better himself, and he wants
Speaker 1: to get out of the classroom.
Speaker 3: He's like unsatisfied in life now in North Dallas forty.
Speaker 1: Nick Nolty wants to get out of you know, he
Speaker 1: feels taken advantage of by the powers that.
Speaker 3: Be in the NFL.
Speaker 1: So like he all, there's something that very clear that
Speaker 1: connects all of Ted Kotschiff's movies.
Speaker 3: All characters.
Speaker 1: Brambo is looking to get the fucking uh am I
Speaker 1: allowed to say, fucking I'm sorry. He's looking to get
Speaker 1: out of this podunk town. That's that's victim, and he's
Speaker 1: looking to move on and better himself and get rid
Speaker 1: of his demons and everything. And of course, like the
Speaker 1: sequels take that in a whole other direction. But First
Speaker 1: Blood as a as a text is ties right in
Speaker 1: with the KD.
Speaker 3: Schieff vision.
Speaker 1: So I love reading directors this way, and I think
Speaker 1: it's very clear most of the time what they're after
Speaker 1: and what they're interested in.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, I funny enough that This is one
Speaker 2: of the main things I wanted to bring up to
Speaker 2: kind of put a bow on Sylvia at the end
Speaker 2: of this is that one of the reasons I have
Speaker 2: enjoyed your ees so much across the board is because
Speaker 2: you know, other people can argue a out tour theory
Speaker 2: as much as they want, but we don't really ingest
Speaker 2: films in a way that even gives credence to studying
Speaker 2: that in in an important way unless you're studying for
Speaker 2: something or pushing yourself to dive into like a Silvio.
Speaker 2: And so for some of these things, it seems to
Speaker 2: me that you're almost uniquely qualified to discuss the idea
Speaker 2: behind the the a tourship of these directors because your
Speaker 2: passion for classic Hollywood, your passion for undersung directors, gives
Speaker 2: sort of this this need to watch somebody almost from
Speaker 2: start to finish, and then at that point you really go,
Speaker 2: oh damn, Like the first five films was this, and then,
Speaker 2: knowing what I know about their life, it changed this way.
Speaker 2: Hence the next period was like this, and you know
Speaker 2: through you know this this brand new doc that hopefully
Speaker 2: everybody's gonna love. You know, you have the cruel the usual,
Speaker 2: the necessary of Silvio that is so you know, afterwards
Speaker 2: you feel so attached to it and just understanding of
Speaker 2: what made each of these movies tick for this director,
Speaker 2: which most people are never going to get unless they
Speaker 2: do that dive.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I probably my biggest pet peeve in the world of
Speaker 1: cinema is the the.
Speaker 3: The obscene abuse of the of the term journeyman.
Speaker 1: I hate people brandishing that word like it solves all
Speaker 1: the equations about whatever director. Stop calling people journeymen.
Speaker 3: Stop. I beg you.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, just look closer. There's there are
Speaker 1: things in every and and any director worth talking about.
Speaker 1: There is something that is worth that is worth discussing,
Speaker 1: that is consistent. Yeah, like journeyman. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear about journeymen. Journeyman. Fuck journeyman.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, these are directors making making choices, making decisions,
Speaker 1: and those decisions impact what you're seeing and those those
Speaker 1: that that yes or no man is going to determine
Speaker 1: the experience that you have on a movie. What drives
Speaker 1: those yeses and no's, And you can get to know
Speaker 1: a director better than just saying like, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: good movie, but a Journeyman directed it. No, stop that, No,
Speaker 1: that's not the way to approach anything.
Speaker 2: Well, and it sounds so discounted and dismissed by the
Speaker 2: person saying it immediately, there's still a lot you can
Speaker 2: glean from it.
Speaker 1: Incredibly dismissive and and it like it stops the conversation cold.
Speaker 1: Its like, no, let's let's talk about this in a
Speaker 1: deeper way. Let's let's go into the weeds about this,
Speaker 1: like what you know, and then like some people have
Speaker 1: a problem you know, detecting this type of thing. If
Speaker 1: a director works in multiple genres, Yeah, that to me
Speaker 1: makes it more exciting, like, oh, how does this how
Speaker 1: does this purview or point of view or perspective manifest
Speaker 1: in this in these new trappings you know?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: One director that most people don't question this about is Scorsese,
Speaker 2: who you are also doing another piece about of a
Speaker 2: film again, uh, completely lambasted by most people. Still today
Speaker 2: New York, New York is getting a lavish release from Imprint.
Speaker 2: Go Ahead.
Speaker 1: My favorite film by him, the first one I ever saw,
Speaker 1: The person one I ever saw. It was one of
Speaker 1: the few that were rated PG. So that was the
Speaker 1: first one I ever saw, and I am ten years old,
Speaker 1: I think I was. I was utterly captivated by it.
Speaker 1: I never saw anything like that. Uh, and I did
Speaker 1: the I did this, I guess effortless three hour commentary
Speaker 1: on the long version.
Speaker 2: And exactly what I was going to talk about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from there, I could have kept on talking. I
Speaker 1: was like, there's so much to say about that film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, the people don't like the improvational aspect
Speaker 1: of it, and they don't like that they the Oh,
Speaker 1: the Robert de Niro character is so unlikable and he's
Speaker 1: fiercely unlikable and all this kind of stuff like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't need to like everyone. He's interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't care, like, I don't need to like the guy.
Speaker 1: He's interesting to watch. And there's the scene I love
Speaker 1: the scene where it's just it's all done musically. It's
Speaker 1: all when they're at the club right before the big fight,
Speaker 1: right before like the big knockdown.
Speaker 3: Drag out fight. In the car. He's plucked there playing
Speaker 3: sacks at the club.
Speaker 1: She's just gotten a big like record deal and everything,
Speaker 1: and she's pregnant and everything, and she's like about she's
Speaker 1: making her way up to the stage where he's playing,
Speaker 1: and he's really surly and he's really kind of grim,
Speaker 1: and she's like she points, like as if to say,
Speaker 1: do you want me to sing?
Speaker 3: Do you want me to join you? And you know
Speaker 3: she takes it for granted.
Speaker 1: She is about to get up onto the stage and
Speaker 1: Robert de Niro gets up and he goes he changes
Speaker 1: the tune into this erratic like d D D D
Speaker 1: and like, you know, like, oh, well, that invite is crushed.
Speaker 1: Now she's got it like this fake little bow like
Speaker 1: to be like, oh well, you know, my mistake. And
Speaker 1: she's embarrassed, you see it. And then like she she
Speaker 1: begins to dance with all these other men on the floor,
Speaker 1: and like you see him losing his shit. But he's
Speaker 1: playing the sacks so intensely. He's about the he's about
Speaker 1: the bust. He's about to like completely lose his mind.
Speaker 1: And it's all it's all done without a word of
Speaker 1: dialogue before the argument, which that where they have it out.
Speaker 1: But that's such things like that, things like you know,
Speaker 1: putting the the improvisational thing. I work with improvisation a
Speaker 1: great deal in my in my fiction films, I do
Speaker 1: it with I always like to think what Joe Dante
Speaker 1: says about having developing an editor's brain, where like you
Speaker 1: when you're directing, you know, oh, if you're in improv
Speaker 1: in particularly like, oh, I know that I'll cut against
Speaker 1: that other thing that I got a couple of takes ago,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to like wallow in. And you know,
Speaker 1: improv can be very messy if you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing, and it.
Speaker 3: Can be very tedious.
Speaker 1: But if you can think like, oh, wait that I know,
Speaker 1: I can cut that against that, and then everything. So
Speaker 1: like the the improv to me is like putting that
Speaker 1: that uh, that looseness in front of the artifice of
Speaker 1: those of the boors Leven sets. I was completely That
Speaker 1: was like a venture into cinema to me when I
Speaker 1: was ten, that was very formative.
Speaker 3: So I love that film. It's my It's still my
Speaker 3: favorite Swiss films.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love Goodfellas, Yes I love King County, Yes
Speaker 1: I love all these other beloved films by him, But
Speaker 1: I love there's a special, very special place in my
Speaker 1: heart for New York, New York.
Speaker 2: And you know, I post these announcements of upcoming physical
Speaker 2: media releases and I get a kick out of some
Speaker 2: of the comments sometimes, but the amount of people that
Speaker 2: on this film in particular are saying things like it's unwatchable.
Speaker 3: I saw it makes no sense to me.
Speaker 2: It's a Scorsese movie. The worst Corsese is even then,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying this is, but the worst Scorsese is
Speaker 2: what most other filmmakers would strive to achieve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I like the the more feminine
Speaker 1: films of Scorsese because I think the film tends to fit.
Speaker 1: Film tends to favor Liza. But I love Alice doesn't
Speaker 1: live here anymore for that reason. I love I love
Speaker 1: when he gets a little, when he gets a little
Speaker 1: away from kind of mafia land. Those those films are great,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, But I tend to really nestle
Speaker 1: into the films that and get this warm, soap and
Speaker 1: water feeling when I watch those other the the the
Speaker 1: the alter Scorsese. I guess you might even call it
Speaker 1: and New York New York in particular, because those that's
Speaker 1: that's musical Land. It's like MGM, the MGM musical homage,
Speaker 1: you know, including the the the detour sequence, the happy endings,
Speaker 1: you know, the musical detour, the you know, the show Stopper,
Speaker 1: which I did a whole peace on for the upcoming package.
Speaker 1: The history of those you know from American in Paris
Speaker 1: has the Big American in Paris, LA. The Singing in
Speaker 1: the Rain has Broadway Melody, which basically these these sequences
Speaker 1: basically stop the movie cold and you're you're in, You're
Speaker 1: watching basically what is a mini movie. But in most
Speaker 1: cases those mini movies reflect the broader movie in some way.
Speaker 1: It holds up almost like a fun house mirror to
Speaker 1: those to the broader movie.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, you know you mentioned the almost three
Speaker 2: hour commentary. I as somebody that the last time we talked,
Speaker 2: I had not done any disc features. Now had my
Speaker 2: hand in some I am so intimidated by the fact
Speaker 2: that a three hour solo commentary is, you know, a
Speaker 2: daunting thing out there. How how do you do this?
Speaker 1: I've done a few big three hour ones all by myself.
Speaker 1: The Voyage of the Damned, the long version that I supplied.
Speaker 1: I did that one because that was just like you know,
Speaker 1: there was some hesitation about including that because of the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine tape quality, because that was a very antique,
Speaker 1: ancient tape, and I was like, well, i'll do it.
Speaker 1: I'll do a track for it.
Speaker 3: I'll do it. It'll be fine. I'll do a track
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 1: And for hell, if I got a you know, a
Speaker 1: long lost extended cut of a movie in whatever shape,
Speaker 1: I'd be very interested in seeing it if I liked
Speaker 1: the movie enough. But no, normally it's just like you know,
Speaker 1: you you can break down if the movie's good.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 1: I did one for Fatal Vision, which is I think
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety two minutes.
Speaker 3: For Keno. I'm just obsessed with that particular true crime case,
Speaker 3: so that that made it been easy. I'm like I was.
Speaker 1: I was really like an obsessive about the Jeffrey McDonald
Speaker 1: murder case first, so I just I just went on
Speaker 1: that that was no challenge.
Speaker 3: Then.
Speaker 1: I also, I've also provided some insight into David Green
Speaker 1: as a director, what he's into. He's into, as I said, perversion,
Speaker 1: not not not necessarily of the sexual variety, but multiple
Speaker 1: types of perversion, perversion of the family unit of you know,
Speaker 1: brothers sister relationship, And I start counting, that's that's there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's the kind of the David Green
Speaker 1: uh ethic there or aesthetic. But you know that one
Speaker 1: was easy for me. Voyage of the Damned. You you
Speaker 1: get into the history of that particular of the of
Speaker 1: the Saint Louis and the the Jews on the on that,
Speaker 1: on that vote, and that whole affair, which is very
Speaker 1: shameful in the in the American history and and the
Speaker 1: broader world history that we turned them away. But you know,
Speaker 1: you can get into that, you can get into that
Speaker 1: amazing cast and uh well, the one of the best
Speaker 1: things about that packages I got to interview Malcolm McDowell,
Speaker 1: which was a lot of fun. And that's funny, I
Speaker 1: I brief aside. I Malcolm is as you would expect
Speaker 1: him to be in life. He is in movies, so
Speaker 1: at least in my experience with him. But he told
Speaker 1: the he told the fade done away. He's like, I,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a downtime. I would take some fruit
Speaker 1: and juggle, juggle it behind fade back and everyone would
Speaker 1: laugh and she'd turn around and as and she's got.
Speaker 3: What what are you doing? And I said, yell, nevern uh.
Speaker 3: As I was editing that.
Speaker 1: I sent that over to Alan Arkish, who worked with
Speaker 1: Malcolm on.
Speaker 3: I get crazy.
Speaker 1: It's like Malcolm always Malcolm always always did have that
Speaker 1: anarchist brat energy or something like that to that effect
Speaker 1: that's perfect. And it's like, yes, I know it's very amusing,
Speaker 1: but uh, yeah, Voyage of the Dan was easy to
Speaker 1: talk about and New York, New York. I could have
Speaker 1: gone on. It's just you know that there's just between
Speaker 1: the the the use of color in the film, which
Speaker 1: are often blazing, and the that the sets that that
Speaker 1: that up club set with all the neon is it's
Speaker 1: a marvel to me. It's it's a it's and the
Speaker 1: way that we as the Kovacs, lit the faces not
Speaker 1: just with the neon, but with this kind of amber glow.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's it's eye popping amazing stuff. The
Speaker 1: heritage and the history of the type of musicals that
Speaker 1: Scorsese was referencing and paying homage to, and Poll and
Speaker 1: Pressburger playing a role, and and uh, the way that
Speaker 1: uh Scorsese constructed the aesthetics in the movie, the history
Speaker 1: of the movie itself. There was just a lot to
Speaker 1: talk about. So uh, it was pretty easy in that
Speaker 1: there there, I tell you the truth, there are like
Speaker 1: I've done I've done a couple hour and change movies
Speaker 1: that are harder to get through than these than those
Speaker 1: three three hour ones. But I did one recently which
Speaker 1: was a a not so great pre code movie, and
Speaker 1: it was that that I was really gasping for air
Speaker 1: at the end of that. It just depends on the movie,
Speaker 1: you know, really depends on the movie. Sometimes you have
Speaker 1: a lot to say about it and you can keep
Speaker 1: on going, and another time there's nothing to say, and
Speaker 1: you know you can you can. And then in certain
Speaker 1: cases you can talk about how like, you know, well,
Speaker 1: maybe a more skilled uh director would have shot it
Speaker 1: this way rather than dead on against a wall or whatever,
Speaker 1: which those some of the non non masters in the
Speaker 1: pre code area, some of like the the the more
Speaker 1: workmen like directors in the pre code era, we're shooting
Speaker 1: it kind of dead on, and that wasn't terribly all
Speaker 1: that interesting. I'm sure if I were to look at
Speaker 1: those that these guys work back to back, maybe I'd
Speaker 1: find something. But then you talk about like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what he's doing here? I notice the y axis, notice
Speaker 1: the z acxis. Notice what's going on here? What could
Speaker 1: we have done to amplify the mood or what's happening,
Speaker 1: what the under the surface, the you know, the subtext
Speaker 1: aspect of these things. So you know, that's you get
Speaker 1: through talking about a variety of different things, and then
Speaker 1: of course you you know, your your cheat sheet is
Speaker 1: ready to go if you you know, if you if
Speaker 1: you're going off, because I can normally go off. I
Speaker 1: can normally like if I'm if I'm on a point,
Speaker 1: I could just like you know, and then I'll just
Speaker 1: like vomit it all up and then uh like okay,
Speaker 1: what do I want to go now? I'll scroll down
Speaker 1: it like yeah, well, now that we're here, let's talk
Speaker 1: about or it will just come to me. So that's
Speaker 1: that's the technique. It's not as easy as people might
Speaker 1: think it is. The commentary racket is I feel it
Speaker 1: incumbent upon me to constantly talk, like some people will
Speaker 1: take pauses. I feel guilty taking any pause, So I
Speaker 1: try to keep it going somehow when I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I like to I like to talk, even
Speaker 1: if it's something small, if it's something you know that
Speaker 1: is less noticeable that you have to be kind of
Speaker 1: more observant to catch, you know, it's like, well, pay
Speaker 1: attention to I'm trying to think of an example in
Speaker 1: New York, New York, even the blazing red use of
Speaker 1: the light on the wall when Robert de Niro is auditioning,
Speaker 1: and then the the very dense blue jailed background of
Speaker 1: the guys watching him audition for the for the Frankie
Speaker 1: Heart Band. From there, you can talk about you know
Speaker 1: that people people will be like, oh, that's a cool shot,
Speaker 1: but they're like, well, let's break down the elements here,
Speaker 1: What's what's going on and how does the reflect like
Speaker 1: the Timonelli, how does this reflect Palan Pressburger use of
Speaker 1: color in the Red Shoes, you know, whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: you can just kind of go, you know, and.
Speaker 2: That's that's where your knowledge of classic Hollywood comes into
Speaker 2: play for a lot of these There's so many that,
Speaker 2: I mean, you could easily do a very surface level
Speaker 2: analysis on some of these movies, which we certainly get
Speaker 2: commentaries that are like that. But I mean, like for
Speaker 2: us lately, when we're doing a commentary, I've resorted to saying, well,
Speaker 2: let's just record an extra five or six minutes and
Speaker 2: fill in the gaps if we need to with the
Speaker 2: extra stuff at the end. Yeah, Terry work is so
Speaker 2: much more research than people really think. I mean, even
Speaker 2: for the shorter movie seventy five minutes, that's a lot
Speaker 2: to speak on.
Speaker 3: There is a.
Speaker 1: The head of one of the one of the disc
Speaker 1: companies who I don't want to I fear misquoting him,
Speaker 1: so I'll just say he's a guy who is at
Speaker 1: a leadership position at one of these companies, said Oh,
Speaker 1: I wanted to try a commentary on one of my
Speaker 1: favorite movies, and it's it was a long movie, and
Speaker 1: I really was keen on doing it, and then I
Speaker 1: got half an hour in and I ran out of gas.
Speaker 1: So I was like, at one point, I think he
Speaker 1: told me, He's like, I really appreciate that you guys
Speaker 1: can just let go, because, like, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: that I would be set for however long this thing lasted,
Speaker 1: and I lasted a half hour, and I was like, oh, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I appreciate my my roster of commentators all the more
Speaker 1: now because it's my favorite movie. And you know, I
Speaker 1: read that's so easy to run out of gas.
Speaker 2: Well, on that note, for anybody that has not ever
Speaker 2: seen anything from Sylvia, which again is going to be
Speaker 2: most people, let's give him a final pitch. What what
Speaker 2: would you say, is you know, some defining points of
Speaker 2: Sylvia's work and things that they can look forward to
Speaker 2: if they pick up this package and are getting your
Speaker 2: documentary included.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, there's just announced on my page anyway,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure Imprint is going to update their sales
Speaker 1: page soon. There's an hour long interview that David del
Speaker 1: Val conducted with the legendary cinematographer Stanley Cortez, whom I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, who shot The Magnificent Amberson's and The Knight
Speaker 1: of the Hunter and a lot of great cluent heat director.
Speaker 1: He was the DP on for Fritz Long and it's
Speaker 1: a very revealing interview recorded in nineteen eighty four on
Speaker 1: an on analog tape on cassette tape that is now
Speaker 1: part of the The Blue Fade in Cruel Usual Necessary package.
Speaker 1: That's a perk and that's really worth I would say
Speaker 1: it's worth the entire set personally, because it's it's a
Speaker 1: very it's very can't like I'll say that Cortez actually
Speaker 1: breaks down crying in the middle of the interview when
Speaker 1: he's talking about what happened on Amberson's.
Speaker 3: Attic. It was for him.
Speaker 1: He was still bottled up and he was very emotional
Speaker 1: about it. Uh, it's David really got some amazing material
Speaker 1: out of him, and some moments that you know that
Speaker 1: you even hear David on the on the audio when
Speaker 1: he's crying, he goes, boy, it's like it's still it's
Speaker 1: still all in there, you know. But I mean, in
Speaker 1: terms of the doc there, I'm sure, like I'm sure
Speaker 1: many of of your listeners out there are fans of
Speaker 1: Howard Berger and Nathaniel Thompson and del Val and Michael Murphy.
Speaker 1: The actor Michael Murphy who people will know him either
Speaker 1: from Woody Allen movies like Manhattan or Paulmerdirsky Unmarried Woman
Speaker 1: or Cloak and Dagger the you know the eighties you
Speaker 1: know Games movie which I saw. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you scared the I told him when I met him
Speaker 1: on the call, I said.
Speaker 3: You scared the ship out of me.
Speaker 1: And Cloak and Dagger Man when he goes, you know,
Speaker 1: Henry Thomas like, I don't want to kill you.
Speaker 3: I don't want to shoot you. And Michael Murphy with
Speaker 3: this deranged looking at it, I want to shoot you.
Speaker 1: Do a thirteen year old kid, you scared the ship
Speaker 1: out of me. He but he's interviewed because he worked
Speaker 1: with Sylvia on the Class of Miss McMichael with where
Speaker 1: he was opposite Clinta Jackson, and uh, Michael Murphy doesn't
Speaker 1: look like he's aged to day. It's it was he
Speaker 1: jumped on. I wasn't he lives in Maine, I believe
Speaker 1: now that had to be a zoom interview. But he
Speaker 1: jumped on the call and he was like raring to go, smiling,
Speaker 1: looked like you know, it looked like he was like
Speaker 1: just Dorian.
Speaker 3: Gray, you know. And I was like, Hey, nice to
Speaker 3: see you. And it's like he's animated telled some great
Speaker 3: stories and uh, that was there.
Speaker 1: So the extended interview with with him is on there.
Speaker 1: But all the all the extended interviews are a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Nathaniel Paul Lyndshoo directed prom Night is on
Speaker 1: there in an extended interview and in the movie itself,
Speaker 1: of course there there are a couple deleted sequences which
Speaker 1: I included, uh, which for no other reason than they
Speaker 1: didn't quite fit into the broader movie. But I think
Speaker 1: our interesting little little bits that I think will enhance.
Speaker 3: Pete people's appreciation. Uh, Peter Medak.
Speaker 1: Actually, when I was working with Peter recently through all
Speaker 1: the all the severan stuff, I got him to pay
Speaker 1: a special tribute to Silvio.
Speaker 3: It's very warm.
Speaker 1: It's a Sylvia the mention of his name, Sylvio, wonderful man,
Speaker 1: wonderful director, and showed showed us a picture of him
Speaker 1: with Silvio, and uh, it was a very nice short
Speaker 1: little tribute that Peter Medak gave to Silvia. Netzano is
Speaker 1: in there. And thank you to David Gregor for allowing
Speaker 1: me to repurpose that. And yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: good stuff on there. You know I'm doing I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing the Blue Commentary within the next couple
Speaker 1: of days with David del vaugh And this is a
Speaker 1: track that we've been anticipating for quite a while because
Speaker 1: we got a lot to say on this one, a
Speaker 1: lot to say, yeah, and what else. Natt's sigle Off
Speaker 1: and I did the track for fade In. It's the
Speaker 1: only track I've done two of actually that one movie.
Speaker 1: I've done two tracks on one movie. The first time
Speaker 1: that ever happened. I did the Keynot. I did a
Speaker 1: track for the Keynot release of fade In, and that
Speaker 1: one was fine, but with Nat on there. Nat was
Speaker 1: around the Paramount and the Paramount publicity team, and as
Speaker 1: I remember seeing fade In on the roster and then
Speaker 1: it just vanished. And he knew Mark Crowley who wrote
Speaker 1: the Boys in the Band play but also wrote early
Speaker 1: drafts of fade In and everything, and so he has
Speaker 1: got more of an insider's dimension to this new commentary
Speaker 1: that I recorded with Nat, that is very worth a listen.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, it's it's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of good stuff on there. Plus I think Josh has
Speaker 1: gotten other one more thing that has yet to be announced.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna spoil it. There's one more thing that's
Speaker 1: on the blue disc. So yeah, and plus the status
Speaker 1: Gil Alis for those who know that actor's name. He
Speaker 1: was the lead actor in America America, the Ealy Kazan movie. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's in blue and I was able to interview him
Speaker 1: on the phone. Status doesn't use, he doesn't use I
Speaker 1: was gonna say Vimeo, he doesn't use zoom and he
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, he's very kind of a kind of
Speaker 1: a loud eye. But there's a phone interview with him
Speaker 1: that is very worth listening to talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the goings on on the set and everything, and I'm hardened.
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of comments by people saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was waiting to pull the trigger on
Speaker 1: on the Keynot edition of fade In, and no, not
Speaker 1: not to talk down to that release. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: a great release with another very good commentary, but that
Speaker 1: this person in the comment said, like, you know, Blue
Speaker 1: with fade In.
Speaker 3: A whole hell of a lot more sense. And it's
Speaker 3: a package.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a package, and you can send because you're
Speaker 1: you'll be watching you know, fade In, and then you'll wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is Ricardo Mantleblant doing in this thing?
Speaker 1: Like oh, what what the hell is Terrence Stamp doing here?
Speaker 1: Like you know, like and then he's in one scene
Speaker 1: and then that he don't see him really for the
Speaker 1: rest of the movie. It's like you don't understand fade
Speaker 1: In as well unless you have the context of Blue.
Speaker 1: I think anyway, I think most people think. So it's
Speaker 1: nice to say like, Okay, we can watch Blue and
Speaker 1: then you can watch the movie that was made on
Speaker 1: the back of Blue and you see like how they
Speaker 1: shared you know sets, and they were cavorting around each
Speaker 1: other and weaving in and out of each other and everything,
Speaker 1: and then you could see how one movie compliments another,
Speaker 1: how their companion films, and then you see that Sylvia
Speaker 1: produced Blue with Judd Bernard, and how this was a big, big,
Speaker 1: high concept thing you know, that they were trying to
Speaker 1: do and it didn't quite work out the way they
Speaker 1: wanted it to. But yeah, it's the whole package. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be as a cohesive whole. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be very pleasing to film people
Speaker 1: and to see everything all together, see these two movies
Speaker 1: that are meant to be paired together next.
Speaker 3: To this doc I think is going to be very nice.
Speaker 2: On top of that, Another quick shout out to Imprint.
Speaker 2: I know that we kind of mentioned them earlier at
Speaker 2: the beginning of this and Josh and everything, but I'm
Speaker 2: always singing their praises of first time on HD anywhere
Speaker 2: in the world disc that they do. But the other
Speaker 2: thing to highlight they are kind of leading the charge
Speaker 2: in amount of extras that they're putting on some of
Speaker 2: these or maybe not even amount, but like giving a
Speaker 2: proper slate of extras to even what people would say
Speaker 2: is like quote smaller films or this is just you
Speaker 2: should be grateful you're get this at all. Imprints like, no,
Speaker 2: screw it. We're going to try to get as much
Speaker 2: as we possibly can to make it appealing and worthwhile
Speaker 2: for most of the releases that they can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean normally they they let me run with ideas,
Speaker 3: which is really incredible and refreshment. Yeah, rare New York.
Speaker 1: New York is Like, I think it would be great
Speaker 1: to have a peace on the history of showstopper sequences
Speaker 1: because for those who are coming in with a little
Speaker 1: less education on that school or whatever, that the MGM
Speaker 1: musical and that genre and that particular type of musical
Speaker 1: will give them a little more context. We'll give them
Speaker 1: a little more to appreciate that. It'll make a lot
Speaker 1: more sense to them when then the movie stops for
Speaker 1: happy endings and then we are like, oh, okay, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know, because I think that tends to maybe
Speaker 1: perplex some viewers, but yeah, they're like, okay.
Speaker 3: Good, you'll do that.
Speaker 1: As like, Okay, I think I can track down very
Speaker 1: prime because Ray Primus is a friend of my friend
Speaker 1: David Proval, and I'm sure I can get right to him,
Speaker 1: like yeah, do that. And it's like I have the
Speaker 1: old VHS of New York, New York. There's a little
Speaker 1: intro on the original tapes that it would be nice
Speaker 1: that was included the original print when it was we
Speaker 1: re released in the director's cut that MGM has gotten
Speaker 1: rid of because now the the definitive cut is the
Speaker 1: long cut, so they don't need it anymore. But like,
Speaker 1: you know, well, let's you know, I'll you can include
Speaker 1: the original title card that explained what they were going
Speaker 1: to be seeing, and they will put that on there,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'll justify that by putting a little
Speaker 1: informational track on like what we're seeing, like okay, good
Speaker 1: and then yeah, voyage of the day. And it was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, I have a three hour cut.
Speaker 1: It's a completely different cut in every way. It is
Speaker 1: not even sequenced the same. They don't even use the
Speaker 1: same shots from from the scene to scene, like they're
Speaker 1: different coverage altogether. It's like, okay, you know, we'll get
Speaker 1: the we'll get the the transfer and then we did
Speaker 1: we did that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There, They're very They're wonderful in that regard, and I
Speaker 1: know that. I was watching an interview the other day
Speaker 1: with Frank Tarzi and he was talking. He was asked
Speaker 1: by Heath Holland like, what do you allow h VHS
Speaker 1: quality to if there's a rare version of a movie,
Speaker 1: would you allow VHS? And he said yes, and and
Speaker 1: I know that other companies have done that. I know
Speaker 1: that the two minute warning, the long version of that,
Speaker 1: the terrible TV cut of that with the all the
Speaker 1: jewel robbery scrap which has nothing to do with anything,
Speaker 1: but they they included that. Shout Factory included that cut
Speaker 1: even though it was taped off of TV and.
Speaker 3: Has the water mark at the bottom.
Speaker 1: That's that's valuable stuck D forensics or archaeology on any
Speaker 1: given movie. That's that that that's that's the good stuff,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, Indicator does that too. They do the all the
Speaker 3: old universal v tools. Uh, I don't know what you
Speaker 3: call them.
Speaker 1: When when the you know, the studio guys went in
Speaker 1: to shoot additional stuff for the TV cuts of the
Speaker 1: movies and then it's a secret ceremony opens with these
Speaker 1: two psychologists talking about what the characters in the movie
Speaker 1: are up to and why they behave the way that
Speaker 1: they do, which I mean Joseph Losi was roiling over
Speaker 1: with rage at seeing that. I'm sure learning about that,
Speaker 1: but it's.
Speaker 3: Cool to include that stuff though it's's.
Speaker 1: Like the director doesn't like this, but let's see how
Speaker 1: people were experiencing this movie when they saw it on TV,
Speaker 1: on network TV.
Speaker 2: You know, it's cool and I mean almost more important
Speaker 2: for some of these things, because you can't acts us
Speaker 2: access them anywhere else. And beyond that, some of these
Speaker 2: they can explain why an entire generation felt a certain
Speaker 2: way about a film because they literally watched a different
Speaker 2: film compared to what many of us are seeing.
Speaker 3: I'm realizing I put it away.
Speaker 1: There's a book behind me Movies on TV. It's a
Speaker 1: reference guide circa nineteen I think, published in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: And I was talking with Howard Berger about this a
Speaker 1: while back over lunch and he's like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that the guy I think Stephen Schuer was his name,
Speaker 1: It was the editor of that. Like, these guys were
Speaker 1: just like looking at movies on TV. Often they were
Speaker 1: mangled and they were they were judging them on that basis.
Speaker 1: So like with Fury, you turn over, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you really get quite bugged by that because you're not
Speaker 1: going to experience Sila Levine is dead in Living New
Speaker 1: York at all well and pandone.
Speaker 3: Scan that you're going to lose a lot, a lot
Speaker 3: of information, you know.
Speaker 1: By the way, for those who were curious about mister Fury,
Speaker 1: I did have a half hour conversation with him just
Speaker 1: two days ago. And he's having and he's very he's uh,
Speaker 1: he's he's happy, he's with he's with his family and
Speaker 1: a lot nowadays, and he's he's he's ninety two and
Speaker 1: he's he's enjoying, enjoying his time.
Speaker 3: So uh, it was nice too.
Speaker 1: It was nice to hear and just like you know,
Speaker 1: it had been a while since I had had that
Speaker 1: long of a conversation with him, and you know.
Speaker 3: It was just it was very lovely. It was very lovely.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I wanted to tell people he's he's he's
Speaker 1: hanging in there, he's doing well.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: If I remember I too. I think you kind of
Speaker 2: tease that there was more Fury coming up in the
Speaker 2: next year or so, probably some more.
Speaker 1: Right this month, there's a set that I can announce
Speaker 1: that's coming, that's going to be announced in the twenties
Speaker 1: in the May twenty something or other. That is that
Speaker 1: is fury oriented so nice. Yeah, so I worked on that.
Speaker 1: That'll be Uh. I can't mention the company, but it's
Speaker 1: I will say it is a UK company, So okay, from.
Speaker 3: That what you will.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's coming up very soon. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's that's That's one of a number of things that
Speaker 1: are coming up. A lot of May announcements for me.
Speaker 1: For a lot of things I've been working on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: waiting for them to come to come along.
Speaker 3: The Blue and Faden was the big one.
Speaker 2: Well to see that the same month with New York
Speaker 2: New York is that You've got a lot happening right now.
Speaker 1: No, it has never been busier. I swear it has
Speaker 1: never been busier. I've carved out a weird little cottage
Speaker 1: industry doing this type of stuff and I'm grateful and
Speaker 1: I'm lucky in many ways. But yeah, it's been It's
Speaker 1: never been busier. I don't know what's in the air,
Speaker 1: but I'm grateful to it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: But yes, cinema is alive, I guess, and at least
Speaker 1: among this little collector sphere that we're part of.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm lucky to have been able to speak to
Speaker 2: you at US. Thanks for your time, sir. I hope
Speaker 2: that everybody else is feeling like Cinema's alive as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope they. I hope they appreciate it. Because
Speaker 1: now with the ease of access, you can do these deep,
Speaker 1: these psychoanalytic deep oak tiered deep dives that I do
Speaker 1: because it's so easy. You can get everything now, not everything,
Speaker 1: but you can get a lot of things, most most
Speaker 1: everything that you need now, and you can do marathons
Speaker 1: of directors that you that you even evince any interest
Speaker 1: in building out from and seeing what they're about. And
Speaker 1: that's people even twenty years ago didn't really have that
Speaker 1: privilege it thirty years ago, forty years ago, shit, there
Speaker 1: was really you know, David Delval was in the Quartz interview,
Speaker 1: was having to rely on I his reference books. You know,
Speaker 1: there was no IMDb then. So you know, it's right
Speaker 1: now with ease of access and availability, and people can
Speaker 1: get these things and they can become if they look
Speaker 1: close enough, they can become scholars in their own in
Speaker 1: their own right.
Speaker 3: So that's a very exciting time.
Speaker 2: Scholars and super fans, everybody should check both these releases out.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to hold them in my hand. The
Speaker 2: amount of stuff that you're doing with Cinematograph and Kino
Speaker 2: and all these other companies, exciting the upcoming stuff from Severn.
Speaker 2: I'm just so stoked that you're able to grab on
Speaker 2: these filmmakers and shake the life into somebody to appreciate them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Ryan, Thanks.
Speaker 2: Daniel, talk soon. Thank you for listening to the Disconnected podcast.
Speaker 2: There's one big thing that you could do to help
Speaker 2: the show, and that is to leave a rating and
Speaker 2: review on the podcast service of your choice. Thank you
Speaker 2: tell me.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 4: This is Matt and Emily from Scarecrow Video in Seattle, Washington.
Speaker 4: Did you know that we have the largest video collection
Speaker 4: in the world. We have over one hundred and forty
Speaker 4: six thousand titles and growing. That's our three times more
Speaker 4: than Netflix, Amazon Max, and Hulu combined.
Speaker 5: Plus Scarecrow now offers rent by mail service throughout the US,
Speaker 5: so check out Scarecrow Video dot org for details. You
Speaker 5: can catch Emily and I or Matt and I if
Speaker 5: that was going to be you saying that on our
Speaker 5: biweekly YouTube show, Viva Physical Media for Video recommendations, and
Speaker 5: so much more CIA bye e.
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: To hear more shows from the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Speaker 3: Please select the link in the description.